Shock as Lost Family Dog is ‘Sold’ by Animal Recovery Firm

Fears have been raised today about a trade in stray dogs being sold after it emerged a company charged with the task of reuniting lost dogs with their owners actually sold a much loved family pet forcing a distraught owner to have to fight to gain his own dog back.

Earlier in the year warnings were given that a change in stray dog laws could spell an animal welfare crisis as councils pick up full responsibility for dealing with lost or strayed dogs.

Now it has come to light that a personal disaster has hit home for Adrian McCollin after his Husky, Kiss, ended up being sold by Animal Wardens Ltd, a firm given a local authority contract to deal with strays.

The sorry story gets murkier.

It is reported that Animal Wardens Ltd actually informed desperate Adrian that they had not found his dog at all when it eventually transpired that Kiss had actually been sold onto another family.

K9 Magazine understands that many pet industry professionals had privately expressed great concerns to the local authorities who had contracted out their dog collection responsibilities to Animal Wardens Ltd, to be aware of this type of incident several weeks before Mr McCollin’s upsetting experience.

Mr McCollin is furious and upset and is seeking legal advice after learning that Kiss was sold to a new family after spending 7 days in kennels. The new family is now unwilling to return the dog.

Kiss went missing on April 10th after being taken for a walk on the beach. She ended up in the town centre of Hastings St.Leonard.
Her desperate owner searched high and low for her and reported her missing to the local council immediately. They were directed to speak to Animal Wardens Ltd who had control of the stray dog contract for the local authority.

“We called the service every day and were told ‘nothing of that description has been in whatsoever’, ” said Adrian.

After a week Adrian spent time and money postering in a desperate attempt to be reunited with his much loved companion. Having seen one of the posters, a town hall employee called Adrian to inform him that Kiss was handed in on or around the time that Adrian says she went missing a week earlier. The town hall employee told Adrian that the dog had been passed on to Animal Wardens Ltd.

“Even after calling them and informing them of the date and location of where my dog was picked up, they still denied having any knowledge of a Husky, Adrian explains”

It was after being told of what had happened to Kiss by a town hall official that Adrian confronted Animal Wardens Ltd again, insisting that they DID have his dog as he had been told as much by someone at the town hall. It was at this time that Animal Wardens Ltd admitted that they did indeed have the dog.

A drained and emotional Adrian revealed, “It has been so stressful, I am constantly thinking about it. I haven’t been able to eat or sleep properly.”

Animal Wardens Ltd is run by Paul Dunne. Mr Dunne has admitted his firm made a catalogue of errors, stating that Kiss was unidentified initially and sent to Viking Oaks kennels were strays are routinely taken. He told the Hastings Observer:

“Kiss was rehomed after the statutory seven day period that people have to reclaim dogs had expired. As Kiss is a friendly dog she has settled into her new home with a woman and her two-year-old child very well and, having purchased Kiss she does not want to give her back. We therefore have a stand-off situation that we are trying to resolve. We have offered recompense for the error but neither party wishes to give up rights of ownership to Kiss. As part of that compensation we have offered to purchase a pedigree Husky pup, but unfortunately both owner and keeper are attached to Kiss. This is a one off error that came about through a series of six mistakes, precautions have now been put in place to prevent a reoccurrence.”

A Hastings Council spokesman is quoted: “This is a very unfortunate incident. We know staff at our contractor, Animal Wardens Ltd, are working very hard to resolve this and we hope they will be able to reunite Kiss with her original owners as soon as possible.”

How terrible that this has happened after all the previous warnings the local councils had!. Does the local tax payer not have a right in the decision over these things?.I live in the Hastings area and i am also a dog owner. I am extremely concerned if one of my dogs got lost etc, would i ever get reunited?.Was Kiss micro chipped?.Was it a case of “o well the dog wasnt chipped we will make a quick buck”. Perhaps the contract was cheap. Surely its going to cost Mr Dunne dearly when he is sued for gross misconduct,or worse, and the local council time and yet more money when they get real and get rid of this contractor before something worse happens. I understand from the dog world that viking oak kennels recently sold a litter of pups who had parvo virus.Please tell me that our strays arent helping us spread this disease from county to county!

This firm is a complete shower and uses untrained staff, many of whom really do not have a clue and they pull the wool over the eyes of the councils that uses them. In the council world, this company is known as being totally rubbish, sadly usually shortly after a couple of months of operation. I hope Adrian takes them to the cleaners, perhaps the untrained staff did not know what a Husky cross looks like.

what was the problem with the dog owner speaking to this shower every day and they kept saying they did not have the dog?

Had the person Adrian spoke to seen his dog or were they not even in Sussex?

luckily Adrian contacted Animal Wardens Limited every day, so he is 100% in the right against these idiots, if he had not made contact the dog could be legally rehomed and there would be nothing Adrian could do.

Was the dog held for the full statutory period or as it had not been claimed after a couple of days did they sell the dog on?

How much did this company sell the dog for, this is just profit over compassion and competence.

Lol at the ‘one-off error through six mistakes’ if it was not so serious.

Hastings Council states that the Animal Wardens Ltd staff were working hard, Hastings can rest assured that that is one thing they most certainly do not!

Hastings council and Rother council instead of getting a competent stray dog service have ended up with a nightmare, I feel sorry for the dog owners and residents of these areas. Things will only get worse, to use a cliché, watch this space (Hastings and Rother council areas)

This company must have only got those contracts in your area because it
is known that it undercuts quality and competent rivals, when you pay
peanuts, you really do get monkeys as this incident shows.

They used to have the contract on the Isle of Wight and one of the ex-employees told me that they did not treat their staff very well and
that training was literally non existent less for a ‘pretend’ course
that according to Animal Wardens Limited qualified the trainee as a dog warden after about 3 or 4 days?

I was also told that during some very bizarre training in Manchester that when a stray dog ran back in to a house that the trainer from
Animal Wardens Ltd issued a fixed penalty notice for fouling even though it had not been seen fouling! How bad is that, giving out fines when the
dog had not even fouled, very dangerous ground if you ask me and totally illegal and completely dishonest.

Sad to read about this disgraceful tale, but in a way glad that this company has been exposed as dodgy dealers, hopefully councils may take note of this for future contracts.

Scandalous! This is what happens when councils think they are making a saving by employing a company to do work on their behalf. What checks did these two councils make in relation to this companys track record, obviously not a lot or they would not be in a situation where they employ somebody who picks dogs up and then deny that they had not got them. What must this company’s procedures and staff be like it is as if the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. Although this animal wardens limited company has caused all this trouble, people will only ever remember that Hastings council messed up big time, they will go off elsewhere and the council will never admit that they employed idiots who did not have a clue will they. Why not keep the stray dog people employed by the council like in the old days at least they seemed to know what they were doing, anything must be better than the current lot.

This is a truly shocking article, how can any local authority employ a company who seem to have no idea of what they are doing?

If a dog owner rings in to the council every day or in this case this company called Animal Wardens Limited, they why on earth did nobody at this company manage to put to and two together? where is the register of seized dogs that by law all councils must keep, surely the information was kept by Hastings council in the health department?

Is the person who Adrian has dealt with in the same area as the kennels where Kiss was held? Why could they not see that a Husky cross reported lost and one reported (presumably)found in the same area were one and the same dog, just how many Husky and Husky type dogs are there in Hastings!

Reading the posts about this article I note that Jenny King writes that she saw an Animal Wardens vehicle with ‘Liverpool CC’ written on it driving around the Hastings area, just what the hell is going on here! Has the Liverpool council area now expanded to Hastings on the south coast of England?

I wonder if Liverpool council is aware that a van they presumably have some involvement with and perhaps contribute towards is working on the south coast of the UK? Would this mean Liverpool taxpayers are subsidising the collecting of stray dogs in the Hastings area, very strange, does anybody know how these things work?

Also I was slightly taken aback that the owner of the company Paul Dunne said:

‘This is a one off error that came about through a series of six mistakes’

Surely Mr Dunnes comment is an error in itself and should actually go something like this:

This is a catalogue of errors that came about through a series of major mistakes.

I checked this company’s website and particularly liked the following on the home page:

‘Working closely with local people in a caring, professional way, we promote and enforce responsible animal ownership.’

Coming in our van from Liverpool we will work with local people and seize their dog then deny we have it even though the local person dog owner will ring every day, this is our professional and caring way of dealing and working closely with local people.

As a client you will benefit from the flexibility of the local newspapers and TV company bringing to the attention of your residents problems caused by us on a regular basis but you as the council will be seen as being in the wrong.

A quick response unless we are stuck on the M6, guaranteed knowledge that we do not have a clue what dogs we have seized or what breed they may be and the vast experience that we do not have any idea about what we are doing.

Guaranteed.

The best bit of all however from the website is:

‘You can’t beat local knowledge

Locally based wardens means they not only know the geography of the area, they are also part of the community so the public know and trust them so they are more likely to pass on information that can assist to resolve a situation.’

What on earth does that mean?

If you want a laugh, although this is not really a laughing matter and I truly hope that Adrian does get this matter resolved satisfactorily, then go to the Animal Wardens Limited website at http://www.animalwardens.com

Some of the stuff on it is truly bizarre, how do these people manage to get work with councils?

Finally has anybody who may be into training or NVQ’s know about this course that the animal warden trainees are apparently trained in:

‘All our new wardens receive Level Two NVQ exemption training to enable them to undertake their duties safely and competently’

I asked a dog warden who works for a council just how long it takes to get a handle on the job and to be completely competent, I was told it takes about two years. I also asked about accredited dog warden courses and was told that Wood Green Animal shelter used to do such a week long training course and that nowadays people can go to Bicton College in Devon for a simialr course.

At least these college ones sound like real courses, what does NVQ exemption training really mean?

What must be remembered is that these people who work for Animal Wardens Limited are nothing like real dog wardens who work for local authorities and have a much greater skillbase, depth of knowledge and involvement with legislative issues. The major difference on using them is that they are cheaper than employing a dog warden who is a local government officer and councils love things on the cheap don’t they! Although to pardon the pun, this stray dog company’s appointment will come back to bite them, Hastings Council and Rother District council on the bum.

Wake up and smell the coffee councillors, you might think you have saved money but you have taken on a bunch of muppets who will cause you years of problems.

This company proves that cheap really is not the best!

Nice one K9 Magazine, yet another article of interest and concern to all dog owners is posted by your great magazine to raise awareness of shoddy practices, keep up the good work!

Why is this company still trading? Take a look on companies house and how many companies Paul Dunne has been a director of and then folded in the past.

Nobody that i have ever spoken to has had a good word to say about Animal Wardens Ltd and it is now time to get this company investigated! How many more incidents like this must members of the public suffer? The good name and reputation of Local Council Dog Wardens also gets tarnished undeservedly, due to Animal Wardens Ltd lack of knowledge and expertise.

I wonder if the(lol) dog loving councils know of this site?. I think that Mr Paul Dunne just has a marvelous printer to print crap off to look good. His website at first looks good, but imagine god forbid if you lost your dog, try to use the links etc as if you had. It really doesnt work. It puts you on a link with lost dogs uk, i believe that this is a charity, i wonder if Animal wardens contribute to this? i doubt it very much, just another area that he is exploiting. I think that we should be paying more attention on the site to the dogs that have gone missing. Its probably all the dogs that he has sold on. I cant see any sign of any dogs in the TN Hastings and Rother areas on there, so where can we see if our lost dogs have been picked up?. When this was with our local councils the website was there for the public to see on a daily basis.Any ideas about how we can get our councils all over the uk to join together and get them out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just had a dreadful thought. Does it not strike everybody that the current keeper of the Husky ( a lady and her 2 year old daughter) hasnt had a say in response to the fact that the owner Adrian wants his dog back. Does she exist?. Does Mr Dunne of Animal wardens want to part with the money that it would cost him for 2 pedigree Husky pups as compensation, as he has offered. Considering the money involved maybe £1000 minimum each, wouldnt you think that being the nature of the company they would just steam in there and get the dog back?. The Husky “Kiss” is a 10 month old Bitch. Very valuable to a puppy farm for breeding or even worse for the fur?.

My Name is Adrian and im the owner of Kiss. I will be having the first meeting with my solicitor today, issuing summons for all parties involved. I’ve been told that the new owners are not willing to give Kiss back after being offered a new husky pup in exchange. I was told by the kennels and the animal warden service that the new keepers of kiss are too attached as she has a 2 year old boy, although by this point they had only had her for 3 days, or should of only had her for three days. I’ve asked Viking Oaks Kennels to relay messeges to the new owners pleeding ti give kiss back. I’ve asked for E.mail to be forwarded, of which the Kennels said they will, and still nothing. It’s got to the point that i really believe that this lady with a 2 year old boy does not excist. I just can’t understand why you can not give a dog back after knowing whats happened, even more unbelievable when your offered a pedigree husky pup in replacement after 3 days. I had a picture of Kiss in Viking Oak kennels, a picture i got from the animal warden who picked kiss up on the day. I had this picture whilst the animal wardens were disputing whether it was a husky that was picked up on the 10th or not. I was told during the first week that the only dog thaqt was picked up on the 10th was a boy and mine infact is a girl. What is more alarming for me is that Kiss was coming to the end of her season when she went missing, which makes her 6-8 times more valuble at that point. I intend to claim compensation from all parties involved, which the majority will go to local kennels. Kiss is a very desirable dog, so much so that at least 1 in 10 people will stop me to remark on her beauty or ask questions and very often asked to sell her on. After calling the Animal Warden everyday and being told “no, we have not had any huskies in or anything that looks like one”, i was convinced a member of the public had found her and decided to keep her. On the 8th day of calling the animal warden service, my girlfriend was told that we can stop calling because they have our details and as soon as anything looking like a husky comes in we will call you. Thats when tha posters went up. If it was not for Elain Brammer of the Hastings Town Hall seeing a poster in the local petshop, I would still be looking for Kiss as the animal warden definately did not have her. The law needs to change, as i have no powers. The Law makes it clear that I am still the Legal owner of Kiss, yet because the new keeper apparently brought her in good faith she is now also the legal owner. The fact that a dog can only be rehomed after seven days and you can’t do anything about it, IF not reclaimed is terrible. I thought the kennels could only LEGALLY sell Kiss if she wasn’t re claimed within the 7 days, so if I’m right, then Kiss was illegally sold, therefore why can i not get her straight back.
I will update the this story once im back from my solicitors and all the way to my reunion.
Thank you everybody for your concern.
Adrian McColin

I am so sorry that you have found yourself in this situation due to the complete incompetence of this company called Animal Wardens Limited.

Regarding the law, Hastings Council as the authority with the statutory duty to deal with stray dogs should again by law keep a register of seized dogs. Go to the town hall and as is your right demand to see a copy of the register and see what information is recorded in regard to Kiss? There maybe different dates and information to what you have been told?

What date was she seized by this company and what date was she sold by them?
You think the new owner may not exist, why would this useless company Animal Wardens Limited say this unless they really do have something to hide?

Max Tyson points out that Mr Paul Dunne has had more companies set up and dissolved than most people have had hot dinners, why is this is he close to bankruptcy maybe?

Adrian you must see this through to the courts as it will be just desserts for an organisation that blatantly disregards the law of the land to get its comuppance. An expert dog lawyer is Trevor Cooper, he is the best in the business, advise your solicitor to contact him. Don’t be fobbed off by any flannel or crocodile tears by this company as they rake in money from councils for the to be blunt, crap service they provide. Lack of input maximum profit, great but not at the exspense of animal welfare and the legal process.

Luckily Adrian you made contact with the council or this company Animal Wardens Limited so they cannot say you did not contact them, this will really help your case.

Ask your legal team to demand through the court, a canine habeas corpus so you will know whether or not the new owner and 2 year old child really do exist? Also ask for a bill of sale to be produced.

From what I know about this guy and how he operates he does not treat his staff very well, he thinks he has councils eating out of his hand and he runs rings round them, how arrogant to treat your customers like that!

Perhaps somebody should contact the local government association and tell them that a company that should be investigated by, trading standards, rogue traders and BBC inside out to name just a few is working for members of the LGA? Maybe somebody should send the link for this site to the LGA, they would then at least be aware of the shoddy organisation and operation of Animal Wardens Limited.

As mentioned in the article the change to stray dog laws was a disaster waiting to happen because of poor guidance from the government.

Sadly that nightmare has currently come to Hastings, how long before it comes to your town?

Adrian best of luck with your fight against Mr Dunne and his company Animal Wardens Limited and I hope that you take him to the cleaners, not only will you be fighting for Kiss, you will be fighting for all dogs and their owners to prevent this happening to them.

On a final note, Mr Dunne boasts on his website that his company has the highest liability insurance in the stray dog industry, twenty million pounds, remember that when your legal team asks for damages, just think what you can do for dog welfare in your area with a quarter of a million pounds!

What a scandulous story.Adrian I feel so sorry for you. If a car is stolen and sold on the new owner has to give it back even if it was bought in good faith, how come a dog is not treated with the same care?

Karen’s comments are very scary, when you see that a husky Blue went missing last year, would they really make good coats?

Hastings and Rother dogs should be kenneled in their own area, this is just so very wrong, not even counting the wastage of petrol in transporting these dogs on a 70 mile round trip.

I cannot believe how such a firm can be allowed to operate, why has no one stepped in and stopped them trading?
I live in the Hastings area, my partner is from Manchester, he has known about animal wardens for many years and in fact had a similar situation to Adrians. His dog slipped out when a visitor left his front door open and like Adrian rang the appropriate telephone numbers given to him,police, wardens, local kennels, basically anyone he could think of that may know of his dogs whereabouts, like Adrian he went through hell worrying what had happened to his beloved pet. He decided to take matters into his own hands and drove round all the local kennels where in fact he found her. He was so angry he paid the fees to get her back and left quickly. This normally totally placid guy felt like he was going to ‘explode’ as the attitude of everyone dealing with the situation stunk! He now wishes he had made people more aware of the hell he went through, he genuinely believed this was a ‘one off’ mistake! Had he known that others, in different parts of the country where to experience exactly the same scenario in the hunt for their treasured pets he would not have kept quiet, luckily he was reunited with his dog and his story ended there, Adrians unfortunately has not and like many others we are praying his story has a happy ending. Oh and lets hope and pray that Paul Dunnes does not, he is no business man…. more of a con-man!

When I first found out animalwardens had our local contract I had a look at their website, I have worked with animals, mainly dogs all my adult life and as soon as I started reading I realised that anyone who wasnt ‘doggy’ would be totally taken in by all their ‘crap’!!!! It seems to me that if you have a flashy website then non ‘doggy’ councils think you know what your doing, give you a contract and hey – no need to monitor whats actually going on as long as theyve saved a few pennies!!

Lastly since when have stray dogs been sold? I always believed that they were re-homed with home checks first and often the gesture of a small donation given. I recently spoke to two ladies who have moved to the Bexhill area from the Sevenoaks area. As soon as I mentioned that Viking Oak kennels were involved I was told… ‘Say no more, they have an awful reputation and even their local council would not use them’ … so why are dogs from East Sussex being carted off to Kent? Surely if a dog has strayed, often chased, cornered and caught the last thing it needs is a 45 minute journey to hell!!! Arent there any local kennels who could take the dogs in, who kennelled the dogs before the 1st April or were they just left roaming the streets? Does anyone have any answers to these questions?
I feel a private investigation is needed to find out exactly what us tax payers are actually paying for!!!!

My heart bleeds for both families concerned, what an awful situation to be in.
My first issue concerns the paperworked involved at the kennels, how did they describe the dog that they had found (Adrian ask your solicitor to check this out) also on their records what type of dog do they say they sold.

Unfortunately, there are money grabbing breeders advertising countrywide selling crossbreeds which are part Siberian Husky or part Alaskan Malamute often described as Huskamutes (no such dog). These foolish breeders are telling their innocent clients that they can train these dogs to walk off lead Any dog which has Siberian Husky or Alaskan Malamute in it can NEVER be let of a lead as their natural instinct to run and hunt
can kick in at any time. This is what has happened here to poor Adrien.

Anybody wishing to purchase this type of dog, please contact the Kennel club who will be happy to supply contact details for kc registered pedigree Huskies or Malamutes, which can be purchased for the same price but will also come with the correct and necessary information.

How can a Husky bitch give birth to a malamute, their so much bigger its cruel and dangerous.

If the error was picked up after the new owner had only had Kiss for three days, then come on give her back to Adrien (she’s part of his family) but I hope both Adrian and the new owner take the kennels to the cleaners.

My heart bleeds for both Adrien and the new family what an awful cruel situation to be in.

My first issue here is – on the kennels paperwork, how did they describe the dog that had been handed in and also with regards to the dog that they sold (kiss) what type of dog did they sell to the new family. (Adrien ask your solicitor to check).

I can not see how this has happened everybody knows what a husky looks like especially trained kennel staff.

Unfortunately, there are a few bad breeders around that are selling crossbreeds based on the Siberian Husky or the Alaskan Malamute often referring to them as Huskamutes. (there is no such breed as a Huskamute they are simply way overpriced crossbreeds). Siberian Huskies and Alaskan Malamutes can NEVER be let off of a lead unless they are 100% securely fenced in.This is because their natural instincts to run off and maybe hunt will kick in. This is what happened to Kiss.

Anybody wishing to purchase a husky or malamute should contact the kennel club where they will be given a list of reputable breeders and will be given the correct and necessary information. A kc registered dog with a pedigree can be purchased for the same price as these crossbreeds.

As for the council how can they expect Adrian to take a replacement dog, Kiss will be family to him.

As Anna Clayton says why can these dogs not be kenneled in the council areas they have been found, where are the kennels used before the councils gave this extremely important work to Paul Dunns company.

The whole sorry episode and the fact that lots of people seem to know how poor this company is really is truly frightening.

After reading what Paul Dunne said to the Hastings newspaper, I personally think that there is no lady and two year old daughter, what has happened to Kiss?

There are some horrible rumours about Viking Oak kennels.

Somebody needs to check out just how many dogs have been put to sleep in the Hastings and Rother areas by Animal Wardens Ltd and Viking Oak kennels.

The whole thing looks like a company Animal Wardens Ltd is picking dogs up and after the 7 days having them put down.

Somebody in Hastings and Rother council areas needs to go to these councils and find out just how many dogs have been destroyed. I hope that it is not a lot, if it is this shows they are not a compassionate company but one who puts cost above animal care.

I live in the north west, this company has a number of council agreements around Manchester and surrounding areas, I think they use this guy because he offers the lowest price.

As this story shows though, this is not necessarily the best option when it comes to providing services to the residents of an area.

Totally stunned that someone who operates like this can get away with it. What do these councils do to check out contractors before they appoint them, who checks up on them when they are working for the councils.

Surely because of this very bad publicity these two councils need to hold some kind of meeting to investigate whether they should still use this guy as it is apparent that his company cannot communicate between itself re what has happened to this dog.

How many other dogs have been reported lost by their owner to animal wardens only to end up who knows where because this company has failed to cross check or probably even keep proper records of dogs they have picked up.

This company fundementally fails to help those dog owners who have lost their dogs if it does not know what dogs it has picked up and is holding in its kennels?

Just how hard is it to know what a Husky or even a Husky cross looks like, they are nothing like a terrier or a dalmatian are they.

The comments beginning to be elicited by this story are becoming seriously un-sound. During 14 years as a dog warden I was accused of theft plenty of times by irresponsible owners whose dogs had been (legitimately) picked up in the course of my duties. There was not one kennel that could be used to hold stray dogs without accusations of everything from ill-treatment to vivisection. What also happened was that in creating the horror stories and ‘effect’ people moved further away from substantial evidence – something that local authorities genuinely try not to do.
So lets stick to what can be established on the evidence.
The owner or Kiss was told that the Council’s contractor had not piucked up his dog when they had. He can now ask to see the copy of the register of stray dogs that the law obliges the Council to keep. Look at ths entry made for his dog, see if there are any discrepancies or alterations in that record (it is known where Kiss was picked up and when) see if his dog’s breed and type are recorded correctly (if not why not). Why was he not invited to visit the kennels to see all the stray dogs? – this is something I always suggested to people looking for their dog for the simple reason that people decribe dogs differently (especially mixed breeds) and even some recognised breeds look different if ungroomed (or clipped off) – if there were any doubts he should have been invited to make such a visit if he was invited why didn’t he go?
Some people are turning this into a fest of anecdotal accusation. If you have concerns over the way stray dogs are treated in your area you have the right to enquire and establish facts. There are certain facts which appear to be becoming established about Animal Wardens Ltd – if they are it is upto the people establishing them to make them public and up to Mr Dunne to provide the answers.

To exercise power over essentially powerless creatures in pursuit of wealth is clearly a problem the world over and on every level this needs to stop. Worse still it is all taking place under the guise of caring for the creature’s welfare. Why have Hasting’s Council appointed such a corrupt and incompetent team to do this incredibly important role?

Kiss and it’s ‘owners’ clearly aren’t the first vitims of this ‘scam’ and if nothing is done immediately many more dogs and owners will suffer!

I must say that I am not surprised to see that Animal Wardens Ltd are receiving bad press. I knew it would only be a matter of time before this would happen. How many incidents have we heard of in the past concerning this company that have often gone unreported?

This company has to realise that dogs are quite often seen as a family member, if you lose your dog it feels as though there has been a death in the family.

I hope Adrian manages to make an example of this company but most of all that he gets his dog back. Animal Wardens Ltd have got to be shown that these sub-standard companies cannot get away with this kind of behaviour.

I fully agree with Brian Ruby, companies like Animal Wardens should be dealt with accordingly. I have found out in the last 15 mins about another incident regarding the aforementioned company however, i can’t discuss that any further on here.

My full support goes out to Adrian, whom i think should take this case as far as he possibly can, hopefully this will result in the safe return of his dog. I also think that the person presently in posession of this dog decides to return it to Adrian, i cannot understand how she can be so attached to this dog after such a short time. It would be good to hear her story, thats assuming this woman exists.

To C. Jackson
Your first point;10/04/08 Kiss was picked up by a lady who works in the town hall, in Hastings. She phoned Animal wardens ltd. Dog picked up and collar removed by warden. Husky registered as a Husky at Animal Wardens HQ!.( CONFIRMED ON THE 22/04/08)when they knew Adrian had recieved a picture of kiss in viking oak kennels.

Second point: Have you ever tried to get a list from this company to show all dogs kept at kennels?. Ive been waiting 3 weeks!

Third point: Kiss looks almost like a pure breed. If the warden who is supposed to be a senior warden by the way, and who happened to have a trainee with him at the same time apparantly TRAINING him ( i use the term lightly)didnt know what a Husky looked like, then he shouldnt be doing the job.

As you say Adrian could have been invited to the local kennels , but unfortunately the local kennels is some 40miles away!. When he got there he would have seen a piece of paper on his kennels saying BOOKED.

Perhaps you would like to phone Animal Wardens ltd and ask them for their comments etc. Their response will be NO COMMENT believe me Mr Jackson try it!. O and if you speak with the council they tell you to phone animal wardens. Sweet isnt it and so heart felt. I truly believe that everyone at the council is hoping that this will go away. But its not going to anymore. This company is making a mockery out of everyone and rakeing in the money.

Alot of people have mentioned on here about the ” in house training that Animal Wardens ltd do. What a joke, they actually do training courses as stated on their web site at Chester zoo and Marwell zoo. Ha Ha, anyone lost their elephant?!!!!!!!!. No wonder they didnt know what a Husky was!!!!!!!!!

Anyway Adrian, take them to the muck heap at the zoos about this cos the s..t really has hit the fan this time!.
Good luck and keep us posted xxx

Hi Everyone,
Firstly i’ll like to thank everyone for their concern and support in this matter, it is some what over whelming.
I have just forwarded all of the extra information thats been given on this page to my solicitor. My solicitors are extremely confident with this case and I now feel new hope of getting Kiss back. Unfortunately it can take several weeks before this appears in court. Everyone is going to have to answer to this, hastings council, ANIMAL WARDEN SERVICE, Viking Oak Kennels, and the new keepers. The fact that the new keepers are refusing to return kiss will affect any chance they have of claiming compensation from the animal warden service. I will be dedicating this weekend on informing every council in the UK that i posibly can of Mr Paul ‘Done’ Dunne, and his service’s. Although many of the Animal wardens service staff are terrible to say it lightly, if it wasn’t for the animal warden on the day sending me a picture of kiss in the kennels then i would never of been able to confirm that it was actually kiss, even though Elain Brammer of hastings town hall handed her in and was behind me all of the way. All i have heard is that the animal warden service are doing what they can to fix the problem. Well, i don’t believe that concidering i have not recieved one phone call from anyone, although my girlfriend did recieve a call on 23rd April from Paul Dunne admitting their mistake and saying he will look into it. i’m not being told anythingby anyone. when i call the animal wardens they just tell me to call back and speak to carol. i’ve given my phone number to them about 1000 times and still nothing. well i wouldn’t want to speak to me if i was them, concidering the amount of questions i just wouldn’t be able to answer like: 1. who infact is to blame for the information not being logged on their systems? 2. if it was logged on your system, then why was we told no everyday? 3. if the information was not there during the seven days then where did it come from? 4. Do they have a log of call outs made, if so why was there not one for hastings town hall/information centre? 5. Most importantly, what exactly are you doing to get her back, or are you waiting for me to go away like everyone else?
6. Finally, what WAS it like making money of dogs?

These are the questions that i fell will finally bring them down. Lets hope so!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No dog owner should ever be in this position and it is all down to the competency (or lack of) a firm who should have done their job properly.

If it can be of any assistance at all, today a new scheme has launched called ServiceWatch – which aims to enable people to demand the highest standards from their local authorities in relation to animal control. You can find out more here http://www.petparliament.com/viewarticle.php?sid=129&aid=40

If the Pet Owners Parliament can assist you in any way in terms of your lobbying and awareness drive to local councils, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

I wish you the very, very best of luck getting Kiss back where she belongs.

Great to read that you are making progress in your endeavours to get Kiss back.

Be very careful of Animal Wardens Limited because within the industry, (not anything like the incompetence shown by Animal Wardens Limited) you hear rumours that when the heat falls on this company, they like to threaten legal action to divert criticism.

The outrage caused by this incident and the complete failure of any kind of organisational ability or seemingly not having any idea about what they should be doing, shows that the shoe is on the other foot for Animal Wardens Limited for once and they are caught in the glare of public outrage.

Paul Dunne rakes in the dough from councils, so don’t believe they, Animal Wardens Limited are short of money!

The ‘senior’ warden mentioned above in the blogs is a person who is sent all over the country for a week here a couple of days there, how can any kind of local knowledge be built up operating like that! Then again maybe this is part of the reason that it has all fallen apart and gone so wrong in Hastings and Rother areas?

The ‘senior’ warden who is referred to above and seems to be the person who took the collar off Kiss, if he is also training trainees then the truly scary thing is, that the trainer doesn’t have a clue about what he is teaching.

Par for the course then for Animal Wardens Limited!

Keep the faith Adrian and good luck with your quest to tell Councils about your experience.

As well as writing to councils, you should also write to your MP and maybe the Local Government Association, they represent UK councils. Address your letters for the attention of the Chief Environmental Health Officer.

You should complete the Pet Owners Parliament form that Ryan O’Meara mentions, it will be another area where a record of what has happened will be stored and used in the report that is being compiled.

If the senior warden is the man I think it is, he is an extremely poor dog handler who it is alleged is not good working with big dogs?

Why would you want to work with dogs if you’re scared of big ones!

As it seems that Animal Wardens Limited don’t really invest much in their people with training and minor issues such as ensuring employees are competent at dog handling, they must therefore be applauded on using a ‘trainer’ who it is alleged does not like big dogs and is pants with general dog handling!

Although the circumstances are terrible and have caused so much anguish and distress for Adrian McCollin, it is almost like a great secret has come out into the open regarding this company. If anybody remembers the film Independence Day, then Animal Wardens Limited are like the aliens. They arrive at a council area, set up their unique method of working, the council finds itself stuck with them and their methods of work, has to pay them for the duration of any contract andusually when the contract comes up for renewal the council may bring the service back under council control. I think that what the problem is regarding Animal Wardens Limited is that they treat the south coast as if it is an inner city in the northwest. In the northern cities there are different issues and I have seen large packs of dogs wandering around in northern towns. With little finances and other priorities to deal with, stray dog control is probably viewed differently than down in the south and not given a high priority, hence packs of dogs. I think that what I am trying to say is that more dogs are destroyed in the north than in the south, so a northern perspective is being used to deal with strays in Hastings. A lack of training and direction makes people who join this company fall into the chaotic, shambolic and directionless work ethic that is Animal Wardens Limited, this is sad as all these committed people can do is leave because of the lack of investment, or stay and due to no training carry on trying to do the job. Unless there is a local Animal Wardens Limited contact in Hastings I think all calls are dealt with via Manchester. Do the Animal Wardens Limited operators know the areas around these two council areas. maybe this is the problem, without local representatives dealing with queries and reunification, then sending employees down to cover for a couple of days hardly brings an aura of local knowledge. The councils need to look at whether the type of service offered to their residents is value for money or whether thinking that the cheap as chips option saved them money it has cost them respect from their residents. Without running to the defence of these councils, they probably fell for the pitch of Animal Wardens Limited , they may ‘talk the talk’ but as plainly shown by this and other incidents around the country, they certainly cannot ‘walk the walk’ or deliver the goods.

I decided to check the Hasting Borough Council website and I was shocked to read the information that it seems that all the fees and charges for dogs seized in the area have to be paid to animal wardens limited.

They claim that they operate 24-7 but they charge dog owners £30 on top of the other charges around £35 per day for their dog to be returned outside 12 noon and 7pm.

The council must have done a deal where the statutory charge of £25 plus other costs is paid to animal wardens limited.

It also mentions their national call centre, so they do operate from outside the area where a dog is collected, no wonder they dont have any idea about what has been collected.

Check out how this company is making money and how it also seems that the council has washed its hands of having anything to do with dogs.

Possibly I am being too much of a conspiracy theorist but if everything is done by animal wardens limited, well instead of bothering to rehome dogs at the end of the seven day period and perhaps spend more money on them, what other options would a company that puts profit over compassion have to use?

Hastings Borough Council’s chief enviromental officer is the one to ask. There is supposed to be a freedom of information, so anyone can inspect details at the council office. I believe officer to be Mike Hepworth.
Rother is a separate council and their blurb tells me that Richard Parker-Harding is their man. Hastings used to run a really good almost elite dog warden service, proffessionally handled by head warden Rod Bridger. Re instate this man! I also believe their dogs were housed at a westfield kennels which is only half a mile outside of the hastings border, the kennels did an excellent job in caring for the dogs and home checked before any strays were rehomed.
Does any one know if viking oak does has the parvo virus in its kennels, as stories are circulating about some puppies that they sold. Dog owners should be aware if this is true, so as to safeguard their pets and that the disease not be spread.

This is just what you get whenever you use untrained people in any sort of discipline.

I am scratching my head after reading that the warden who was carrying out training in the area is supposed to not like big dogs and is a poor handler, surely being able to do both is very important when you have to handle unpredictable dogs of whatever size?

Please come and handle some of my fellows and see how you get on handling them poorly!

Once you have been taught how to handle dogs properly, we can then get some kind of legislative training organised, then you may have some kind of idea about what you should be doing!

I will even throw in a dog identification book so that you can refer to a dogs breed type if you are at a loss to recognise a dog type. As a crazy afterthought, you might want to keep it in your van, I assume you do have a proper van with cages?

Surely it is time that people working in animal control duties have to be licensed or have to pass some kind of test before they can be let loose on peoples dogs. Otherwise I suppose you could get people straight out of the job centre with little or no dog experience.

I take it that this is not how Animal Wardens the firm operates…..or is it.

If anybody from the USA is reading this, do you know if Animal Control Officers in the individual states have to be licensed by the state authorities to operate?

If you go to the Hasting Observer website and type ‘dog’ in the search facility a list of links comes up, when you click on the link re Adrian and Kiss, you get a picture of……. well a Husky.

Just how on earth could the Animal Wardens warden not see that Kiss is very ‘Husky’ looking!

Adrian are you able to scan the picture that you were given of Kiss in the Viking kennels and send it out via a link or maybe send it to K9 magazine and ask them to post it on this article so we can have a look please.

‘Hastings Borough Council’s chief enviromental officer is the one to ask. There is supposed to be a freedom of information, so anyone can inspect details at the council office. I believe officer to be Mike Hepworth.
Rother is a separate council and their blurb tells me that Richard Parker-Harding is their man. Hastings used to run a really good almost elite dog warden service, proffessionally handled by head warden Rod Bridger. Re instate this man! I also believe their dogs were housed at a westfield kennels which is only half a mile outside of the hastings border, the kennels did an excellent job in caring for the dogs and home checked before any strays were rehomed.
Does any one know if viking oak does has the parvo virus in its kennels, as stories are circulating about some puppies that they sold. Dog owners should be aware if this is true, so as to safeguard their pets and that the disease not be spread.’

Anna,

What has happened to Rod Bridger, has he been dismissed or moved to another council job? You do not need to get a Freedom of Information request to check on how many dogs the council has destroyed.

As others write above about the register of stray dogs, it is a legal requirement of the council to keep this, if it is being kept by Animal Wardens Limited and they are not producing it when requested, they are breaking the law.

Check out the Environmental Protection Act 1990, it clearly states that councils have to keep a register of stray dogs and that the public are entitled to ask to see a copy.

This is nothing to do with the Freedom of Information, if as it states above too that somebody has been trying to find the information out for three weeks from Animal Wardens limited, then they are acting illegally by not producing it.

Then again knowing how this company operates, maybe they have never heard of the register of stray dogs.

Where is the register of stray dogs? Complain to the council, they would have had one when the service was run by Rod Bridger as when dogs are seized the paperwork is processed either into a ledger or onto a computer but the council still has to produce the details when requested.

If the kennels they take their dogs to have parvo-virus and they know this but continue to take their dogs in, they are also acting irresponsibly and dangerously as they can be contributing to spreading it around the area.

Other stray dog kennels that find they have parvo-virus close immediately and then work to eradicate it as best they can, they can be shut for several weeks. By continuing to take dogs in to these kennels they are then possibly making these dogs vectors for the disease when they return them to different parts of their home districts.

If there is a kennels only half a mile beyond the Hastings border, why do they take these dogs all that way to another kennels that is 40 odd miles further on, could it be anything to do with money or what happens to those dogs that are not claimed?

When I read the article about the sale of dogs connection I thought oh no but when it quotes Mr Paul Dunne as saying Kiss was rehomed to a lady and her two year old daughter and it was so quick after being seized or whatever has gone on, I wondered just what kind of suitability and compatability test was carried out.

After all Kiss is a young dog and Animal Wardens Limited has rehomed Kiss to a presumably single lady and two year old child (not that there is anything wrong with one parent families having dogs)how can Kiss’s temperment have been gauged if she was kept in kennels all along.

Is there in fact any lady and child ‘new’ owners of Kiss? Surely if the new owners had been approached and the situation explained properly, who would not have thought that as the original owner has been found (or in this case was known all along we will let them have the dog back and we will receive a refund.

This part of the whole sorry episode is setting alarm bells ringing, perhaps Mr McCollin needs to ask his lawyers to summons Kiss’s new owner to court to prove that this person does in fact exist.

Then again if the register of stray dogs is in the town hall it must show the disposal of Kiss and as it is a public record surely Mr McCollin would be able to find out who the new owner is?

What will happen if it comes to light that there is no new owner of Kiss, especially after what the company has publicly stated and it is recorded in the media.

Just a short note in response to the C.Jackson posting.
I own a kennels in the Rother District Council area. I had the stray dog contract for this area for the last 2 years before Animal Wardens ltd took over. I would just like to comment on your points about never having had a kennel involved that wasnt accussed of theft/ vivisection etc. I dont recall any complaint or suspicion of theft ever happening or infact anything in the Hastings and Rother district of this nature, ever.
I am very saddened to hear about the Husky story and i hope that Adrian gets her back very soon.Its alot for a young dog to cope with.She must wonder why she was taken from her doting Dad. Good luck xxx

I think that what C Jackson was saying is that when you work as a dog warden (you write that you used to have the contract before Animal Wardens Limited)you get accused of all kinds of things. When you used to collect dogs, there must have been times when you had to deal with a violent or angry or even both, dog owner who was not happy becuase you had seized their dog whilst complying with the councils statutory requirements under the law.

You do sometimes hear anecdotal tales of ‘the dog catcher stole my dog out of our back yard’, when you really look in to it, the dog has managed to get out of the yard, as you know yourself with no collar or microchip to ID it, the stage of dog wardens using ESP to find the owner is not yet upon us.

Incidentally as you say that you used to have the previous contact, is it possible that you could enlighten me and perhaps other contributors about the following please:

1. Do you know how many tenders were received for the contract?

2. When you did it, how many dogs did you have to PTS over the two years for reasons such as illness or aggression?

3. Did you charge dog owners an extra £30 to get their dogs back like it seems Animal Wardens Limited do (check their blurb on the council link)

4. Did you charge £35 per day as it seems to say on the Hastings Council link shown above?

5. Did you cover daytime and evenings in Rother council area, does this mean that R Bridger worked the Hastings patch. Do you know what kind of work he is doing now?

6. Do you have any idea why the council stopped using a local company and instead went out to one that is based in the north of England?

I put the name of this company on the internet and this came up from Liverpool Council (remember their van was seen driving around Hastings):

‘Animal Wardens Limited

Animal Wardens Limited will operate a service effective 6 April 2008, on behalf of Liverpool City Council, Halton Borough Council and Sefton District Council, for dogs that are reported after 5.00 pm. Animal Wardens Limited can be contacted on telephone number 0845 241 7253.
It is important to note that the out of hours service will only collect stray dogs that can be held or contained by the finder and that there is no general search provision.’

Reading what they do above, it is as if they are doing people a favour, they do not actually respond to dogs wandering around, what about safety of people and the dog? ‘Contained by the finder and that there is no general search provision’

Re the search provision wonder if this means once your dog has been picked up they will not search the kennels to look for it and get it back to you!

I’ll be at the Town Hall on Monday morning, but I am almost certain that i’m not going to find a register. Hastings Council are fully aware of the situation as I recieved a phone call from Mike Hepworth on 22nd April stating they have confirmed it is a husky in the Kennels and he is trying confirm that it is actually my dog and he will then get back to me. . . . . . still waiting. Carol from the Warden service bluntly told my girlfriend that she is in a meeting and will call back as soon as she is done. . . . . . . must be a meeting about how their going to fix this problem because we’re still waiting. Each day this week, my girlfriend has called the warden service and was told each time Carol is in a meeting or Carol has said herself that she is in a meeting. Each time we were told, i’ll call you back. In my first comment on this page i said that Paul dunne had called my girlfriend admitting the mistake, but it was infact Carol that called. At the time of the call Carol was apparently the head of Animal warden service and when i later found out it was Paul Dunne i assumed it was the same person she spoke to, as she told me she spoke with the head of the animal warden service. So Until today i thought Paul Dunne had only made 1 attempt to inform me or my girlfriend about the situation when infact he has not done a thing. Carol made another call to my girlfriend 24th April asking if given another Husky how much compensation will we be after. Now, if you had just brought a dog and after 3-4 days find out the owners have been found, would you not give it back after being offered a pedigree husky pup and compensation. I can’t think of one person i know or have ever known that would say no, apart from the imaginary family that can’t say yes because they don’t excist. Part of me really hopes that it is an imaginary family because Virus Oak Kennels and animal warden service would surely be immediatly shut down, but then the other part of me would die all over again for the loss of Kiss.
Up until the day Kiss went missing she never left my side. I never stayed away, and i never went away. the longest we would have been apart would have been if i was going shopping on my own, so no more then an hour. Kiss came to work with me as i worked in the office of a factory that has a large amount of land that kiss had to run around all day with my boss’s labradour. Kiss chose to sleep at the end of my bed every night and woke me up religiously between 06:00-07:00 everyday without fail. It’s not so bad now but i still open doors really slowly as Kiss always use to sit by the door as soon as i leave the room. I still have tins and bags of dog food, just marinating for Kiss’s return.
Again and again, thank you everyone for your support.

Quick note: This story has been on: Page 3 of ‘The Hastings Observer’ Page 33 of ‘The Times’ saturday addition, BBC south east today, commented on page 6 and 41 of this weeks issue of ‘The Observer’ and this web-site. BBC want a follow up, and want to see this through to the reunion along with the observer. This story was taken on by everyone when they only knew the rough story which was obviously enough for TV. I assume the press will have a field day with actual facts about the company as any fact about animal warden service must be a joke.

Register of seized dogs — prescribed particulars
3. For the purposes of section 149(8) of the Act, the following are the prescribed particulars to be contained in the register of seized dogs which is kept by the officer—
(a) a brief description of each dog, including its breed (if known), and any distinctive physical characteristics or markings, tattoos or scars;
(b) any information which is recorded on a tag or collar worn by, or which is otherwise carried by, the dog;
(c) the date, time and place of the seizure;
(d) where a notice has been served pursuant to section 149(4), the date of service of the notice, and the name and address of the person on whom it has been served;
(e) where the officer disposes of the dog pursuant to section 149(6)—
(i) the date of disposal;
(ii) whether disposal was by destruction, gift or sale, and if by sale, the price obtained;
(iii) the name and address of the purchaser, donee or person effecting the destruction; and
(f) where the dog was returned to a person claiming to be its owner, the name and address of that person, and the date of return.

Note it says the following Are the prescribed particulars etc. to be kept by the Officer. This is the legally required document to be kept and held by the Local Authority Officer responsible for dealing with stray dogs. That responsibility is then delegated to whoever will carry out the task on the ground.

You have a legal right to see the document as the Council has a legal requirement to hold it and produce it when requested.

Animal Wardens are becoming a scourge.
I am trying to find out why one of their operators came into my local councils area several days ago, removed a dog and transported it to a contract kennels in another council’s area. This council has its own Dog Wardens and its own Kennels.
Animal Wardens are not contracted to this council and are not authorised to deal with dogs in this area.

The dog was very close to our own council’s kennels and could have gone to there.

This is not the first time I know that this firm have strayed into other council areas without authorisation.

The answer in the past is that they work on postcodes! I have news for them, council areas don’t work by postcodes especially when there is a very large, wide, river between them and another area!

I remember quite a few years ago, that one of the Cheshire Boroughs decided to privatise their Dog Wardens. They awarded the contract to Animal Wardens. Several months later I was speaking to one of the Borough Officers involved in dealing with the contract. He was praying for the contract to finish so that they could bring the Service back within the council. Says it all.

I don’t blame the local authorities really, they have been left holding the shitty end of the stick by central Government. In many cases their only options were to provide no service at all, (I know 2 Cheshire LA’s who have chosen that route) or to contract out.

It is a reality that private companies taking on contracts like this are in it for one thing only, to make a profit.

I’ve been trying to catch up on the various different facets to this story.
I’ve just read what other commenters have alluded to:

(From Hastings Borough Council Website)
Stray Dog Costs

If you allow your dog to stray or roam free, our contractor can impound it as a stray under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. If this happens, our contractor won’t return the dog to you until you’ve paid the following charges (which must be paid in full, not in installments):

* A statutory fee of £25.00; plus
* A variable fee relating to kenneling, veterinary or other essential animal health costs, and transportation to and from kennels and an owners house. This variable fee should be no more than £35 per day
* if an owner requires the return of their dog other than between 12 noon and 7pm there will be an additional charge of £30.00

If that isn’t a blank cheque then I don’t know what is!

I can’t believe that a local authority could make such a loose term in a contract to so much benefit to a private company.

I only had the kennelling contract not the pick ups. My job was to care for the stray dogs for 7 days, in which time i would access/ interact and really get to know the dog before rehoming, Obviously home checking the new owners, if they werent reunited with their owners. Sometimes it would be obvious that the dog had an owner, and on at least a couple of occassions the dogs were reunited after 3wks or more. You get a gut feeling sometimes that the dog already has a good home its just a matter of waiting for them to find them.Although this doesnt make money,it is why i own a kennels, because i am here for the welfare of the dogs. I love a happy ending, which i hope and pray for,for Adrian.
It is difficult to give you a figure on PTS. I Only did The Rother area and we had to have 3 PTS.I think Hastings was about the same. You can get these figures from the councils. The rest of the info you requested is a bit more difficult. I think that under the freedom of information act you could get it all.
I hope this is helpful to you.

Sorry not to have been back onto the comments over the weekend. Thank you for the following responses to my comment:

Posted by S. Pickering 9th May, 2008 at 7:39 am
To C. Jackson
Your first point;10/04/08 Kiss was picked up by a lady who works in the town hall, in Hastings. She phoned Animal wardens ltd. Dog picked up and collar removed by warden. Husky registered as a Husky at Animal Wardens HQ!.( CONFIRMED ON THE 22/04/08)when they knew Adrian had recieved a picture of kiss in viking oak kennels.

Second point: Have you ever tried to get a list from this company to show all dogs kept at kennels?. Ive been waiting 3 weeks!

Third point: Kiss looks almost like a pure breed. If the warden who is supposed to be a senior warden by the way, and who happened to have a trainee with him at the same time apparantly TRAINING him ( i use the term lightly)didnt know what a Husky looked like, then he shouldnt be doing the job.

As you say Adrian could have been invited to the local kennels , but unfortunately the local kennels is some 40miles away!. When he got there he would have seen a piece of paper on his kennels saying BOOKED.

Perhaps you would like to phone Animal Wardens ltd and ask them for their comments etc. Their response will be NO COMMENT believe me Mr Jackson try it!. O and if you speak with the council they tell you to phone animal wardens. Sweet isnt it and so heart felt. I truly believe that everyone at the council is hoping that this will go away. But its not going to anymore. This company is making a mockery out of everyone and rakeing in the money.

Your initial points S. are exactly what I want to hear – a clear, unemotional outline of evidence. If you don’t have that and don’t present it in exactly that way you will fail in the ultimate goal. Most important here – can you prove that BOOKED was on the kennel door of this dog before 7 days had elapsed as that definately suggests malpractice; no stray should be deemed “booked”. Lots of other excellent points but it’s not for me to prove them in this instance (I can only do that for what I am directly involved in).
I hope you get my drift – the council (Council’s) will not respond well to over emotional, anecdotal, outbursts – they will be terrified if it can be proved they have got themselves involved in malpractice.

Posted by Ian Merlin 9th May, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Amazing posts coming out about Animal Wardens Limited, how is it possible that a company with such an alleged track record can get away with this sort of carry on?

It is quite easy Ian it is an ALLEGED track record unless you have proved it: for the sake of the animals you must PROVE it effectively if the Councils of this country are not to be allowed to take the quick and easy answer (offered by Animal Wardens Ltd and others) to very serious probelms created by s68 of the Clean Neighbourhoods Act.

Posted by K . Robinson 10th May, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Just a short note in response to the C.Jackson posting.
I own a kennels in the Rother District Council area. I had the stray dog contract for this area for the last 2 years before Animal Wardens ltd took over. I would just like to comment on your points about never having had a kennel involved that wasnt accussed of theft/ vivisection etc. I dont recall any complaint or suspicion of theft ever happening or infact anything in the Hastings and Rother district of this nature, ever.

K. Robinson You have either been extremely fortunate or have not been listening to whispers about your kennels if they were involved in this work. You may have even treated such rumours with the comtempt they deserve and no longer recall them or perhaps even the people of hastings and Rother are too polite and nice to make them in the first place. Whichever it is my point is that there are allegations (made by people with an interest in discrediting ‘authorities’ they have a grudge against) and there are proven allegations – only evidence can establish that proof and differentiate the claims being made in such a way as to enable effective resolution of them.

I have exactly the same belief as the vast majority of the correspondents to this comment and if you look back in contributions to these K9 pages you will find that there is nothing here that I have not warned about. But we are now at the point of requiring proof and establishing facts. To me the most interesting point is that not only have this Council handed over the contract for the dog warden service to Animal Wardens but in doing so they appear to have decided that the public register of stray dogs required by the Environmental Protection Act may be kept by their contractor rather than locally and a copy of that register is not available to view as the law requires.
Essentialy had the register been properly kept Adrian would have been able to examine it (the point made about an 80 mile round trip to actually see the dog is also an interesting point as councils are having to contract further out of their areas to establish services and if they are keeping them so far away as to make visits impractical then perhaps it night be expected that they provide a local way of looking at dogs – even good quality photos).
These things need to be established as either legal requirements or good practice. the problem is that DEFRA did not provide appropriate guidance on any of this.

I think that there is an overwhelming case being built in Adrians favour, as I am sure his solicitor will know. But there is a lot more work to do and making generalisations, assumptions and anecdotes will not help.

I think that you are trying to offer a balanced viewpoint for the contributors but you must be able to see that allegations or fact or whatever is forming a pattern?

Why do councils around the country allow such shoddy service, for all the places that you do not hear any problems about, are these places providing an adequate level of service or do people not know about what is going on?

What is your opinion on those who work with dogs and stray dogs, do you think that there should be some kind of compulsory standard that should be reached?

Possibly through a combination of previous skills plus some aptitude tests that show whether a person is capable of doing this type of work it may raise the bar so to speak in relation to what type of person works in this field.

As for the comments on training carried out by this company, what is NVQ Exemption training when it is at home see the Animal Wardens Limited website for more information.

As this incident has elicited such a response from all of us, perhaps you may be interested to know that if you join the Pet Owners Parliament, go to http://www.petparliament.com, you can join the current blog discussion about Animal Wardens Limited there.

When you join the P.O.P (it is free) you then get a single vote for issues and campaigns. You can also access a letter that you as a member can send to your local council to find out just what sort of stray dog service is operating in your area, maybe you will find that it is good or maybe it is bad?

You can also send confidential complaints at another area of the P.O.P about council dog warden services, these are investigated and compiled into a report.

As we are all like minded people, the P.O.P seems to be the best way to mobilise our opposition to poor service from councils.

is there a protocol for getting a council to re instate dog wardens (as apart from animal wardens ltd) ? hastings seemed to have invested so much in acheiving such a good service before, ie good, dedicated and trained wardens, fully equiped vans etc and the local kennels used was excellent, i used them for my own dog, it is such a shame to see such a good working arangement go down the pan. any suggestions?

Well, I have been watching this thread with interest and must say I am not surprised. I have been an ‘in house’ dog warden for nearly 15 years and have two adjoining Boroughs under the control of Animal Wardens and can confirm they are an untrained, shoddy bunch. Yes, they have taken dogs out of my Borough and transported to their own kennels, yes, they are paid a fortune for their contracts, no, they don’t give value for money and yes, some of their activities have been very dodgy…but at the end of the day, we can demonize Animal Wardens as much as we like but isn’t it up to the individual authorities to make their own choices? are they not answerable on an individual basis for the actions of their service units? if the contract managers are brought to buck for employing a shoddy firm and ultimately answerable for service delivery, Animal Wardens will be frozen out. Perhaps we should be badgering the LA’s?? just a thought from one a little long in the tooth now….

Ex Plod-it is a reality that private companies taking on contracts like this are in it for one thing only, to make a profit.

I am a partner in a company that carries out dog warden services for councils. We continually strive to provide the best possible service to our customers and animal welfare is paramount. We try our best to reunite dogs and owners. your comments about being in the business for one thing only is rubbish. I’m not denying that We do make a profit from these services however it isn’t a big profit. We find that providing an excellent service provision and reuniting both dogs and owners is a reward in itself, so please do not tarnish other service providers with the same brush as the complete shower of s*** that go under the name of Animal Wardens Ltd.

I made my comment about Animal Wardens and Paul Dunne early on in this discussion, at this time I didnt realise that comments were also going to be made about vivisection, PTS, aggresive dogs etc.
I would now just like to add that for two years I have owned an ex Rother stray that vets had decided was to aggresive to be re-homed. The local kennels who had the dog (a tiny Jack Russell) persevered with him until a suitable owner came forward (myself). I have four children, at the time 3 teenagers and a 5 year old, all of who follow my rules when a new dog comes into my home. It was a fair enough comment by vets if they havent been involved with dog rehabilitation, luckily for ‘Buddy’ our local kennels saw something in him that vets hadnt and now two years on he is a really good boy and a pleasure to have as part of my family. Down on the beach or in the woods other dog walkers often comment on what a happy little chap he looks running around with a big grin on his face. If it hadnt been for this kennels ‘Buddy’ wouldnt have made it through the system. Also, even though I know hundreds of dog owners through my work in the Hastings and Rother areas, I have never heard any comments about the kennels being involved in vivisection or stealing dogs, our area is definately an area of dog lovers but obviously have better things to do with our lives than to make up untrue comments about the people in our area who dedicate their lives to making local dogs lives so much better.
I still cant believe that Adrian hasnt had Kiss returned, why is it taking so long? I have been making as many owners as possible, out on walks etc,aware of Adrians’ situation, hopefully no one else in our area will be put the same terrible experience as him…. we are all routing for you Adrian and really do wish you all the best.

oh a quick ps…. If anyone is having problems with their dog a very good ‘bible’ to own is… The Dog Listener by Jan Fennell, I pass round a ’30 day’ version to anyone who is having problems with their dog,or should I say problems understanding their dog! The feedback has been extremely positive and has given owners a new insight into understanding their pets.

I dont think that we are demonizing Animal Wardens Limited, more like commenting on the way that they provide a completely rubbish service for top dollar whilst the incumbent and probably totally adequate and competent dog warden or animal welfare officers are reassigned or even made redundant.

What councils fall for is the way that they are told what they want to hear but they are never going to get that service. You are right that it is the fault of councils, but like everybody, for example if you get two cars, one costs £20,000 and the other £1,000 and they are exactly the same, you would buy the £1,000 wouldnt you!

Not defending Animal Wardens Limited, they truly are a nightmare and if it is not an insult to the Keystone Kops, they are less efficient and organised than them.

You say they operate on both sides of your borough, it must be testimony to you that your council has not taken the Animal Wardens Limited shilling and used them, unless the mistakes they make are well known to your council?

Working with dogs is not an unskilled job and as you know yourself, the role of dog warden is far more complex than employing an untrained person and telling them that they are now a ‘warden’.

To be a competent dog warden and to take on board all procedures and face almost every scenario that you can in the role must take a couple of years at least?

The reason that there are many incompetent Animal Wardens Limited employees dealing with stray dogs and obviously not being aware of such minor issues such as council area boundaries, is more than likely down to the fact that they receive no training and as others have written above, they are sent somewhere or perhaps they have too big an area to cover, they must not know whether they are coming or going.

Not feeling sorry for them, just angry that they get this exploited by a profit based company and the public in the areas they work end up getting an abysmal service. If all the above comments are to be amalgamated they show that there is something wrong with this company, probably before when they were more regional, people would not really hear of wrongdoing and incompetence on the part of this company as they were elsewhere in the country.

Now that they seem to have gone national they may have very well overstretched themselves by taking too much work on and not having enough employees (trained or untrained) it is now very apparent that Animal Wardens Limited is out of its league.

It sure does not do what exactly it says on its Animal Wardens Limited tin!

I think that the vivisection comment by C Jackson was made in the same way as an example such as when a persons dog strays from its home either accidentally or if its owner lets it out, then the dog is picked up by the council, it is always ‘taken away by the dog catcher’. The fact that the dog is taken out of a potentially dangerous situation for the dog or others is missed.

I know nothing about the Viking Kennels but some people on here seem to do, maybe they know more about what is going on?

I am going to draw my posts on this issue here to a close with this one and hope that it will lead to further examination of all services under ServiceWatch on the Pet Owners Parliament.

A couple of comments to answer first: Anna you ask; “is there a protocol for getting a council to re instate dog wardens” and the answer is quite simply no. Many councils which have taken on Animal Wardens Ltd have eventually returned in house but many others have kept their services for many many years (this is usually due to the recruitment by AWs of a capable person to the role and credit should be given to that person for working for low pay and under pressure from company and council – but it does happen). Unfortunately accurate records of cases against Animal Wardens, other companies, and “in house” services, have not been kept in one place and it is that which ServiceWatch is designed to remedy.

What standards should these services be provided to? Well that’s another problem – nobody knows (I omit from this the knowledge of standards we might like them to work to). DEFRA have provided little or no guidance, there are no competency tests or official training courses, and anyone competent or trained in other areas will experience extreme frustration once working for a local authority where you will find a whole range of other issues arise which will difer from authority to authority and with every change of political colour or managing officer. Don’t forget the council officer given the duty to deal with stray dogs may well be an Environmental Health Officers with no knowledge or interest in dogs whatever (many of them see getting ‘dogs’ as a completly poison chalice).
The NDWA, with which I have worked for around 20 years has presented plenty of reputable material and often contributed to prevent others from making fools of themselves but we receive no credit for doing so and are less than popular – and all to often completely ignored. This included warning about the potential disaster of removing police from the reception of stray dogs and demanding that already overstretched local authorities provide that function alone.

One final point: I mentioned vivisection once, yet it has been taken up by at least two other contributors out of the context in which I used it. let me clarify, I know of two large kennels in the North West of England, the region in which I work. Both have been accused, by Chinese whispers, of sending stray dogs for vivisection by people, with various grudges (in which I include people who let genuine concerns about animal welfare grow into causes for ‘activism’). the rumours were started on the basis of large vehicles calling at the premises (allegedly removing dogs for vivisection). the truth was that in one instance the vehicle was removing the carcases of the animals put to sleep (and for those who feel sensitive to that it calls at hundreds of vets surgeries as well); in the other instance it was actually a vehicle used to take stray dogs to empty kennels in the South East of England because, at that time, the North had a surplus and the South a deficit of dogs for re-homing. Damaging allegations with no basis on what was actually happening. This illustration was used to show that councils hear all sorts of ‘rumours’ and in the North at least allegations of malpractice are common and commonly unfounded, although the South East sounds like a heaven in which such things never happen. It illustrates my main point that it is most important to record and present facts acurately without distorting them, even with genuine emotion, if you want to improve these services and avoid them deteriorating further. Councils and the governmemt department (DEFRA) will listen to real evidence.

I wonder if the Hastings council officers or even the councillors are going to do anything to reign this organisation in? It seems like they are completely out of their depth, how do they get away with it?

Do you think that the councils and the DEFRA department will listen to real advice from ordinary people, if all these postings are anything to go by, this matter has certainly raised awareness that there are some poor companies out there if nothing else.

I note that elsewhere on this website an article explains that the Scottish government is referring, or at least putting a policy document written by yourself for NDWA on its library portal so that all Scottish MP’s can access it during a forthcoming debate on amending or introducing dangerous dog legislation in Scotland.

Has the UK government ever done a similar thing using NDWA experience, if not why not.

To Mr McCollin, good luck in your endeavours to get your dog back from this company.

The law states that the officer appointed to deal with say dogs (this could be the chief executive or a director) has to maintain a register of stray dogs. In reality the actual handling of the dogs is via a dog warden or other delegated person.

How the flip can a member of the public in Hastings examine the register of stray dogs when it is in north west England!

Somebody at Hastings is breaking the law, go on the internet and look for section 149 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, it clearly states and legally requires the council to keep a register that is open to public inspection.

Maybe the council is going to fly people up to Manchester whenever they need to inspect this legal document.

Hastings council is losing the plot, somebody there is talking male cow faeces!

Adrian tell your legal team that the council is acting illegally by not having the register available.

Just been speaking to Adrian. He is posting on here but things are not being posted up?. He has another appointment with solicitor on monday so fingers crossed that things will get moving. He is very hopeful!

The officer shall keep a register containing the prescribed particulars of or relating to dogs seized under this section and the register shall be available, at all reasonable times, for inspection by the public free of charge.

That’s what it say’s so why is Hastings council exempt from the law of the land?

Hi ya’ll
I am Adrians sister and i would like to thank everyone for their continued support through my brothers ordeal. I believe that Adrian has been shafted good and proper by Dog Wardens Limited and by reading all of your posts believe that they are definatley being a bit economical with the truth. Well I know how much Adrian loves Kiss and I also know how determined my brother is so much so that he will not give up untill he has explored every avenue possible in oreder to get kiss back. Good luck Bruv. xxxx Love sis x

You accidentally called Animal Wardens Limited, Dog Wardens limited, please dont elevate them to a status that sounds like they may know what they are doing, it is offensive to those who are dog wardens!

Adrian’s post about his visiting the town hall was lost, I think that there was some kind of problem with the server or something?

R Taylor forwarded the message that Adrian had been to the town hall, it is scandalous that the local council do not have the register, how can people check it, if it is not there, disgraceful and illegal.

Anybody know what Hastings Borough Council is going to do about the lack of a register of seized dogs in their borough, perhaps people should start requesting to see it, as it is a document open to public inspection. One of the posts above writes that they have been waiting three weeks to see the register of seized dogs from animal wardens ltd, that is totally unacceptable, they should present when requested, not take three weeks, then still not present it.

In the scheme of things Hastings Council Dog Warden Service was known in the industry as a pretty good one, why then did the councillors and possibly the bean-counters at Hastings get rid of the dog wardens and replace them with a completely dire, untrained and poorly led company called Animal Wardens Limited?

I am still following this story with amazement and outrage. The total lack of organisation and image that is appearing, makes Animal Wardens Limited look like what my old Sgt Major would call a complete bloody shambles.

If Mr Paul Dunne was an officer in the Army, I would not follow him to the toilet let alone into battle, how does he manage to flannel people into giving him these contracts?

Hi Uncle Adrian
Please let us know when you get Kiss back. We have known her from a puppy and we miss her so much. She needs to be at home with us where she belongs. We love her so much and we have our fingers crossed for you.

Hi Everyone
I sent an Email to Grag Casy of the environmental health for hastings council, informing him that the dog register was not produced when requested. I recieved a reply asking whether i want it posted or by electronic suffix, nad if i wanted Kiss’s entry or the entire register. I requested the entire register by Email and also gave my address and asked if i could pick it up as it would save time. Grag Casey said that i would have this the following day as his email states but yet nothing. Greg Casey assured me that they are doing everything they can to resolve this and get Kiss back. What exactlt are they doing. if the keeper of kiss has refused to give her back; then what exactly can they do. I feel the council have put this to one side and are again leaving the situation to the Animal wardens who are not doing a thing accept running from the situation. i’ve not recieved one call back whic i was promised from the council or the animal warden service. The council are now being as uncooperative as ‘Animal wardens Ltd’.

This stress is just way to much for me now, as its been a constant battle with everyone that has any involvement in Kiss being found, denied and rehomed. No one wants to give me any answers as there are none.
It is pointless me calling anyone else, so im taking the first day off from the search for Kiss since 10th April. . . . but i’ll do taht tommorrow, until then, Animal Wardens Ltd and Hastings council will be filled with Emails, which im sure will be ignored or passed on.

Thanks again for everyones help.

Also if anyine has actual facts about the Animal wardens please could you start the paragraph with (FACT:) this will make it alot easier to pick out exactly what we can use in our case.

As this article has drawn over 100 comments. If you have already writtena fact about the Council or Animal Wardens Ltd please could you repeat them with (FACT). This will be very very helpful and much appreciated.

i’ve just recieve the register by Email, Kiss’s entry only shows the following: picked up in Queens Square, Hastings – 10/04/08 13:54 – Cross Huskie – Gender: Male – Dog colar: No – Outcome: gifted to Viking Oak Kennels. The other details are colour, muzzle etc, which are all right correct, however, Kiss is a bitch and had a collar on as can be confirmed by the council worker who handed Kiss in. there are several details which are not on the register and should be as far as comments above go, hense why i’m asking for (FACTS).

If anyone would like a copy of this register just send an Email and i’ll forward it straight to you. The register shows that there are several dogs at the holding kennels now, so im worrying for their owners. It would be good to see if the kennels can or will confirm whats on the register.

Gifted to Viking Oak Kennels.
Why would Animal Wardens Ltd charge me well over £100 to get Kiss back on the seventh day, but then just give viking Oak a Huskie for free. Another point, exemption. Animal Wardens Ltd staff under go NVQ exemption trainning. Now the real meaning is NVQ Noun – The act of exempting; the state of being exempt; freedom from any charge, burden, evil, etc., to which others are subject; immunity; privilege; as, exemption of certain articles from seizure; exemption from military service; exemption from anxiety, suffering, etc., trainning. Basically, NVQ you don’t have to do it.

When the employee from Animal Wardens Limited collected Kiss from the person who found her, it says above that the cretin took her collar off! This would explain why no record of any collar was recorded, it was presumably left somewhere by the Animal Wardens Limited employee, why did he do that?

As for getting Kiss’ gender wrong, this is a true sign of untrained employees being basically left to get on with it, if they had procedures to follow, they would not be so poor and dire, you know what it says about ‘you pay peanuts, you get monkeys’ Better not put that idea in Mr Dunnes head, he might just start doing that, apart from some problems with driving, we wuld probably not notice any difference in work and skills!

Shockingly Adrian mentions several dogs in the kennels, may I suggest the following:

1. As a matter of urgency, Hastings council sends Rod Bridger to these kennels to correctly identity what these dogs really are and to ascertain they are what gender reported?

2. Have these dogs scanned for microchips, Animal Wardens Limited are not good at such complicated procedures such as looking for microchips!

4. The council needs to keep the register of stray dogs at its town hall, what use is it when it’s in the north of england and somebody in Hastings wants to view it?

5. Consider redeploying the local government dog warden service, bring them back they are proven to do a good job and would run rings round anything that Animal Wardens Limited can supply.

As for the Animal Wardens Limited NVQ Exemption training, check out their other training ‘claims’, just reading it on their website has you shaking your head. It is pathetic, if they do teach all that in two days, they must be employing nuclear scientists! The other side of the coin is that possibly they don’t actually teach all that content at all. Also how the hell do they teach dog handling on an alleged academic course, if its all on paper, this might explain why one of their ‘trainers’ is not good with handling dogs?

Are there any people out there who can tell us about NVQ training for animal work? I have heard that some councils let their animal handling staff take NVQ training, but I don’t think it is ‘exemption”training’

Animal Warden Ltd have already said they have made contact with the new keepers of Kiss, so they know exactly where she is. Im assuming the kennels had passed that informtion of sale over to Animal Wardens Ltd once Viking Oak said ‘its got nothing to do with us’.
At the end of the day, Animal wardens Ltd along with Hastings Council have both said Kiss is with a lady and a two year old boy, so again i’m assuming between the two of them, there in contact with the keepers everyday. All i can see for Animal wardens Ltd and Hastings council to do is beg, beg and beg this heartless lady to give Kiss back. What else can they possibly do.

How horrible of the lady to not give Kiss back!! It is NOT her dog and never was!!! The police need to seize Kiss from her and bring him back to his rightful owner, Adrian.

How sad that she is teaching her child to steal and be so unkind! The kid will get over the loss of the dog, especially when told she belongs to somebody else, and he will be able to love on his new puppy that the Animal Wardens Ltd. need to buy them.

What is difficult to understand here and to comprehend is it is claimed that Kiss was only with the lady and child for three days before this catastrophic mistake was uncovered.

Surely after only three days and with competent negotiation and discussion, Animal Wardens Limited would have been able to convince this lady that a grave error had occurred and the owner of the dog (Kiss) had been looking for her all the time, it is not as if Adrian had not been in contact with Hastings Council and Animal Wardens Limited and would have forfeited his rights to ownership as is what happens when dogs are not claimed within seven clear days under the environmental protection act.

There is something more to this than meets the eye and with the reputation of this company Animal Wardens Limited, this is worrying.

If it had been anybody else, this unfortunate incident could have been put down to a terrible mistake, but I bet that they would have negotiated the return of in this case Kiss for Adrian.

The silence of Animal Wardens Limited is deafening!

If Hastings Council are in touch with the lady and child owner, surely they could send a council lawyer to discuss the situation with her, after all is this not what lawyers and the like do, advocate things? They need to advocate and negotiate the return of Kiss! Animal Wardens Limited are obviously unable or unwilling to resolve this, they are probably sticking to the ‘after seven days she was rehomed as per the law’, yes that has happened, but this was with Animal Wardens Limited being contacted every day by Adrian and due to their malpractice they failed to know what dogs they had under their control, gthats what Adrians lawyers will take this company to town over and rightly so!

Adrian possibly plan B for you and Kiss may be to get your lawyers to get you a substantial out of court or even in court settlement, then advertise in the local papers for the return of Kiss for a large amount of money, you might get her back that way?

It looks like you are going to get no help from Animal Wardens Limited, remember Hastings council spokesman saying ‘staff at Animal Wardens Limited are working hard to resolve this’, yeah sure, course they are not!

A true dog owner/lover would understand that the true owner needs his dog back.

A law abiding citizen would not want stolen property in her house.

A true loving mother would give the stolen dog back to the rightful owner as soon as possible so that her precious child dosn’t become even more attached to the dog and risk having to return it after the court case.

A husky is not the type of dog you buy for a two year old, they are far to strong and powerful.

Please have a heart, GIVE HER BACK.

Take the kennels to the cleaners, buy the child a suitable dog and a holiday to Disneyland etc.

The register is incomplete as far as comments above go. The outcome is Gifted to Viking Oak Kennels and that it.
If you or anyone else would like a copy, you can send me an Email and i’ll forward it on.

*Kiss was reported and logged as missing with the police and Animal Wardens Ltd on 10th April 2008.
*Should of only been rehomed on 17th April 2008.
*I found out she was handed in on 22nd April 2008.
*Kiss should of only been rehomed for 5 days max’.
*New Keepers were offered a Pedigree Husky and compensation for the return of Kiss, and refused as the 2 year old boy was way too attached.

I planned to go on holiday this year, well not a holiday a long weekend, just Thursday to Monday and i was going to leave Kiss with a friend and her two year old boy. Do you think her 2 year old boy will be so attached after 5 days that i won’t get Kiss back? Even if i offered a Pedigree Husky Pup? And a little something to compensate???????????????????????????????????????????………………….???????????????????????????

If Kiss was seized on the 10th April, then seven clear days would have been 18th April 2008. It is hoped that Kiss was rehomed with presumably a proper home check being carried out? Was any kind of home check indeed carried out, or did a person simply go to Viking kennels, see a dog for sale (Kiss)and take her home with no home check or suitability check carried out by the kennel owner?

A true dog owner/lover would understand that the true owner needs his dog back that was denied him by an incompetent company called Animal Wardens Limited.

Arthur
The regulations are that the dog may be sold, given away or ‘otherwise disposed of’ after seven full days. That was why I asked my question. In my kennels we make it eight days with extra for Bank holidays. So Kiss should not have been rehomed/gifted to, before 1355hrs on the 17th. That’s why our release date would be on the 18/4/08 from those details.

Dave the Dog is correct. The law states that the dog must be held for seven clear days. this means that the dog should not be available for rehoming until dat 8. In this case, the 18th April. If Kiss was signed over to Viking Oak prior to 18th, AWL have acted illegally.

My understanding is that the collar was removed. Where did it go? This is also theft. The collar was on the dog when it was handed over and my understanding is that it was the description of the collar that helped the Police PNSO identify the dog to AWL.

For some reason (known only to themselves) Sussex Police are still accpeting stary dogs at some Police stations, Hastings being one of them. Just a few days ago, slightly ‘miffed’ and grumbling GSD was handed into them and placed in their kennel. AWL were duly called and when the AWL ‘Dog Handler’ saw that this chap was a bit grumpy about being locked up, the AWL person said ‘I don’t do dangerous dogs” and refused to get him out of the kennel. This fell to a Police Officer who also has to put him in the back of the AWL van.

It is not know what happened when the dog had had his 35 mile drive to viking Oak.

Your post about the way that the employee from Animal Wardens Limited acted when faced with a grumpy dog at the police station shows that untrained muppets are being employed.

Any true dog handler who had pride in their work and their role in helping dogs and protecting the pubc would be thinking ‘how do I get this dog out of the kennel into the van without the dog or anybody getting injured?’

By saying ‘I don’t do dangerous dogs’ shows a total lack of knowledge about dogs!

Lots of dogs get ‘grumpy’ in kennels but when they are handled correctly, once they are out of the kennel they are fine.

Poor show Animal Wardens Limited your employees cannot even handle dogs and have to suffer the shame of somebody else handling and putting the dog into the Animal Wardens Limited van.

What an absolute shambles, they’re reduced to asking other people to handle dogs for their untrained employees who apparently as well as having difficulty in recognising Huskies and knowing the difference between a dog and a bitch also have problems with handng dogs.

Well done Hastings Council, Animal Wardens Limited are a credit to your money saving decision to get rid of a perfectly good dog warden service and replacing it with to be blunt, a load of crap called Animal Wardens Limited!

To restore quality and confidence in Hastings, get rid of Animal Wardens Limited now!

i went on a secret spying mission – before this tragedy occured – to viking oak and after putting my 50p in the collection box wandered around the kennels at will looking at the dogs there with a view to rehoming one/or that was waht was told to the kennel maid/ their labelling was quite explicit about when a dog would be available to be rehomed or if it was already booked, if it was not claimed by owner prior to its legal incarceration. The kennel maid said we could take any dog out for a walk in the square and if we liked the dog book it or if time was up then pay for it and take it home there and then. I think it was around £85 for a dog. I have been told that Kent do not insist on home checks, but i dont know if this is true. Viking oak certainly do not bother.
SO GIVE BACK KISS and BRING BACK ROD BRIDGER.

I cant see how anyone would not return this dog if they knew that all this was going on, which begs the questions of is this woman aware, or does she exist and if not then what happened to Kiss? Could a petition be started to try to force hastings council and or animal wardens ltd to reply to adrian, cos not knowing must be the worst.

You made a mistake, you said AWL ‘dog handler’, there is no such thing!

Try AWL ‘dog mis-handler’

A two week Protection Dog Handler course would be beneficial to these muppets if they had the bottle, but as most seem to be scared of dogs as well as apparently being clueless about them they wouldn’t pass anyway!

Thank you for the information on your visit to the Viking Oak Kennels.

I am a bit dense, but are you saying that these kennels allow people to take dogs for a walk that have not completed their statutory time in the kennels and their owners may or even still have the legal right to reclaim their dogs?

A really bad scenario is sort of coming out here, who thinks that Animal Wardens Limited may have thought that after 3-4 days as the dog had not been claimed then no owner was going to come forward, so they told the Viking Kennels to sell it or let them sell it?

As Kiss is such a beautiful looking dog, she was snapped up for £85 by a person who realises just how much a Husky costs?

The dog can be sold early and Hastings council can still be charged for 7 days kennelling?

As most people would think, ‘hang on a minute, that’s not how the law operates’, remember that we are talking about a company that does not seem to have much idea about how it operates itself, it has ‘dog handling’ staff who seem to be scared of dogs (see posts above) and if they have no training, how can they know about minor stuff such as the legislation that they seize dogs under?

Is this Viking Oak kennel under the jurisdiction of Sevenoaks Council?

Re whichever council it is, you have to remember that they only issue a license based on a kennel meeting the criteria of the licensing requirements, stuff like the selling of dogs is not down to the council that licenses this kennel.

If Tonbridge & Malling Council take their dogs to this kennel, this will explain why Animal Wardens Limited take their Hastings & Rother dogs all the way there. Animal Wardens Limited has the contract for Tonbridge & Malling Council too.

Appalling that no home checks are carried out, how can they know that the dog is suitable for the environment that it is going in to, whjat about the safety of the dog and people if things start to go wrong?

What happens if dogs do not settle in, are they sent back to be sold on to somebody else, do the vendors get their money back?

We can’t home visit every single dog, not enough staff. We will home check for all the ‘macho’ breeds, (Bullbreeds, Mastiffs,GSD’s, etc.), not because of the dogs themselves but because of the type of person these can attract.

All interested parties fill out a questionnaire upon which a decision may be made. If a prospective home is outside of our area we contact the local Dog Warden and ask them to do a home check for us.

We won’t rehome to late term pregnant women, homes with very young children, in these cases we ask them to revisit us at a later date.

Some dogs do show a great personality change in kennels and we have to try to factor that into any decisions.

To Dave.
Im afraid that home checking is a must on every breed.You have to make time. Its not just specific breeds,also things like the way the new people live. Ive often had potential new owners come and i think that they seem ok only to home check etc and am shocked with the way they live. Right down to the bunny stuffed in a hutch etc in the garden, and forgotten etc. How can you know that without visiting every new home?.

Are you saying that a yorkie for instance because it is small and wont do much harm, is less important?.

If we are responsible kennel owners then one of our jobs is to make sure that strays dont become strays of the future, by irradicating putting dogs into unsuitable homes. It would prevent having people like Paul Dunne of Animal Wardens creaming off because of irresponsible dog ownership.

I’m not a Kennels Owner. I’m a Senior Animal Control & Welfare Officer.

I would love to do home checks for every dog, but with a small staffing level, 24 hour service with no extra staff (we have been determined to keep the service in house if we can) and enforcement, education, kennels and all of the normal day to day work which is part and parcel of the job it just is not possible.

When we have volunteer home checkers then that is what we do. Unfortunately they tend to stay for only a short time before moving on to paid work.

We also work very closely with various local and regional welfare rescues who will assist when possible.

The new owners are also made aware that they may receive random visits from my staff.

The main problem, which is the root cause which started this thread off, is inadequate funding of local authority services nationally.

I am one of the better funded services, but, without central government financial committment, contracting out to firms such as Animal Wardens is always a background threat. I would not like to see what is happening elsewhere, to happen here.

I’ve been working in this job for nineteen years and have worked very hard indeed to improve standards, I’ve been working with dogs for thirtyfive years and I’m also the Chairman of a small specialist animal sanctuary.

I agree with the aspirations and hopefully one day it will be a national norm.

You have literally hit the nail on the head, if there was something in place such as the proposed K9 Magazine ‘Dog Owner Suitability Test’ for all dog owners, regardless of whether they were buying from a breeder or obtaining a dog from a charity or sanctuary, there would be less opportunity for dogs slipping through the net and being sent off to unsuitable owners. There would also be guidelines so that a dog that requires specialist care such as a Husky would not go off to a lone parent with a 2 year old child from a kennels that just appears to let the dogs go to anyone?

To Stray dog.
I went with anna to the said kennels for a snoop. We were told that we could walk the dog which still had to do its 7 legal days. If we liked it we could put a deposit down and pick it up when its time had been done. We were also told that the prices start at £80 for a standard mutt, but obviously the prices go up with sort after breeds etc. I wonder how much they paid for “kiss”.
I know that the price for a pup with parvo was £200. I wonder if they were charged more because parvo was charged as an extra or in the words of Mr Paul Dunne of Animal wardens ltd a “variation”

Stray dog.
Variations is a word Animal Wardens ltd uses that means its over and above his contract price. So in otherwords its extras. I expect the council didnt understand it either. So to cut a long story short, he puts in low price for the service then bumps it up with a monthly bill. I bet they understand it now that they have the first April bill in?
As for the parvo, it is fact backed up with a certificate from vet and a receipt of rehoming from the kennels. This might explain why “kiss” hasnt been returned, god forgive its a horrible thought and luckily she was innoculated, so hopefully that hasnt happened but who knows

An update via a very upset and distraught Adrian. The council appear to be doing nothing. Animal wardens has offered money which he doesnt want. He obviously just wants “kiss” back home where she belongs. He has contacted Trevor Cooper who is a dog law specialist. It seems that the contract that is agreed with the council is not worth the paper its written on. In theory if your dog gets lost and picked up by them they can actually choose whether you have it back or not. Dogs are going missing all over the place. The dog register that finaly came to life has at least 4 not on there that i know where picked up and that was just in April, so god knows how many more are not accounted for. The local MP is the next move.We are not giving up on this. The very least that Animal Wardens can do for Adrian is to let Adrian have photographic evidents that “kiss” is alive/well and being looked after properly. Please keep these posts up and the story going as it will all help.

I assume that the case of ‘Kiss’ has been referred to ServiceWatch on the POP, if not it should be.

“In theory if your dog gets lost and picked up by them they can actually choose whether you have it back or not”

I do not understand this comment R Taylor, it is not the Law as it stands and should not be in any legally framed ‘contract’; can you give more information please?
Hastings Council is at liberty to contract out their service, they cannot however change the legal framework within which that servive is delivered. Apart from incorrectly stating verbally when the owner enquired that no dog of the owners description had been picked up, the paperwork on which the dog picked up was recorded contains two elementary and unacceptable errors that ‘Kiss’ is male and that she was wearing no colar at the time of seizure. These errors may be due to an operator’s inefficiency but they are now at the door of the officer appointed to deal with stray dogs who has devolved his function to create a public record to Aminal Wardens and he must explain them to the owner of the dog or the ombudsman.

“The dog register that finaly came to life has at least 4 not on there that i know where picked up”.
Please, please ensure that you obtain verifiable evidence to this effect – statements from those who saw the dog picked up (by the contractor) and from owners searching for the missing dogs and being told that it has not been picked up. It is vitally important evidence to prove further mismanagement of this contract; but without it it is rumour and allegation.

I must be missing some major point over this story. Kiss was effectively *stolen* from Adrian, the theives (animal wardens ltd) have admitted mistake and offered money in way of restitution, ergo admitted their *crime* .Council who employs aw ltd. have said in print that they want adrian to have his dog back, and yet now nothing can be done. if it is a crime (as in the goods and chattel law) then why cant the police start proceedures? If the council is still ultimately responsible for the strays because the aw ltd are their agents, then why cant they insist that Kiss is returned? And WHY can no one tell that poor bloke where his dog is and why he cant have her back.

To C Jackson
One always has to be careful when writing things with no proof.I would not, as said previously be scare mongering. I have the proof in black and white sitting infront of me about the 4 dogs that are not mentioned in the register. The ombudsman will be seeing the proof alOng with the local MP.

Confused – please be careful with allegations of theft. theft is to intentionally deprive someone of their property; no such intention has been proven so far. The dog was picked up, legitimately, as a stray dog; it completed seven days holding (we believe although there may be some question about this) and was then re-homed, this too is legitmate and gives legal ownership rights to the new owner. However the original owner (Adrian) had been searching for the animal and was (apparently unintentionally) prevented from claiming it during the seven days because (we believe) some facts were incorrectly recorded on the seizure record (i.e. it is a female not a male as recorded and it was wearing a colar when found) these mistakes may then have prevented those asked from realising the ‘lost’ and ‘found’ animal were the same, leading them to say they had not got the dog. There is nothing on which the police can start proceedings that I can see. However there are a great many things which suggest that the Council and their contractor (Animal Wardens) have administered the law incorrectly and this gives the original owner of ‘Kiss’ grounds for legal action to have his dog returned to him as the (incorrect) procedures followed unermines the legitimacy of the re-homing. Like others I am very concerned that a person giving a new home to a dog under these circumstances is not prepared to return the dog to its original owner (especially claiming that a young child is too attched after a few days – spoilt child in my opinion) and it would be nice if a photograph could be provided to Adrian indicating that the dog is indeed in good health while the legal battles continue. To the best of my knowledge there is no previous case law for this – but I am not in legal practice – but this is why it is so very important to establish facts. If it can be established that the contractor falsified the record intentionally a whole lot of things change – but that has not yet been done. In a legitimate re-homing former owners are not told who new owners are as they have reliquished rights to their dog and the new owners have a right to protection from any subsequent regrets or second thoughts they might have.

R Taylor – excellent – I am only too glad that you do have proof and I am acting only as Devil’s Advocate because I have shot down many badly concieved complaints in the past I really don’t want this one to fail because it’s veracity is left suspect by anything. I still do not undertsand your comment “In theory if your dog gets lost and picked up by them they can actually choose whether you have it back or not” and would greatly appreciate it if you would explain what it means – no offence.

Just before anyone else does it:
The Theft Act 1968 Section1 (1) states that a person is guilty of theft if: he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it.
Note “dishonestly” and “intention”.

Whilst the debate has been raging, has anybody actually contacted Servicewatch? if not then Animal Wardens Limited will get away with this terrible error.

The service is confidential.

The local government ombudsman and the local MP might get some justice for Adrian and Kiss.

Kiss was legally seized but as C Jackson writes, she was not recorded correctly. A canine is either a dog or a bitch, so there is a 50-50 chance of a person getting it right or wrong.

What must have happened here is that an employee of Animal Wardens Limited has through, idleness, incompetence, lack of procedures, no training or a combination of all four, failed to verify the gender of Kiss.

Scarily though it is claimed that the person who got these things wrong is/was an Animal Wardens Limited ‘trainer’, unless they mean Animal Wardens Limited has launched a range of sports footwear!

Removing the collar and subsequently failing to record that Kiss had a collar also compounded the error.

Being hu dreds of miles from where the action is, also makes it difficult to keep track of what is going on in the local area.

Hastings Borough Council’s Officer authorised to discharge the councils responsibilities for stray dogs should not have handed total responsibility for stray dogs over to this company as it is plainly clear that Animal Wardens Limited is incapable of providing a competent stray dog service.

Things to note:

Register of stray dogs should not be held 250+ miles away, it should be available for immediate viewing.

To protect the public, employees should investigate uncaptured strays.

Employees should be trained in dog handling and dog collection procedures for their safety, the dogs safety and the general public.

Bio security should come in to effect when they know their main kennel has parvo virus disease, why are they still taking dogs there?

Hastings needs to consider using kennels that do not harbour parvo and they’re not 45 miles away?

Consider reintroducing local government officers as dog wardens.

Consider the effect of Animal Wardens Limited on the reputation and image of Hastings Borough Council, this story is spreading across the UK every day.

Is Hastings council and Animal Wardens Limited actually working together to resolve this completely avoidable debacle?

I have been away for 2 weeks with no access to a computer (bliss). But I am very sad to find that on my return, I find this situation unchanged. I had assumed that Kiss would be home by now! It would have been nice to find that Animal Wardens had been correctly dealt with by Hastings Borough Council and that indeed the Council itself had taken action against the incompetance of its own staff. Sadly. it appears. I live in a fools world!

To reiterate the situation: A dog goes missing – Owner infrorms the Authorities (Council, Contractor & Police) within one hour of losing his dog – Dog is found one hour later. So far all is well and at this point owner & dog should have been reunited. Albeit that the owner may be a little out of pocket.

However, this is where it all goes wrong because the contractor first of all denies having the dog and then sells or donates the dog dog to a third party. That third party then sells the dog to a fourth party who becomes attached to the dog with a very few days and refuses to hand it back. Am I right so far?

There are a number of issues around this and questions that need to be asked. The first must be the professionalism of the contractor (Animal Wardens), which will then lead onto the competance of the supervising authority (Hastings Borough Council).

Should I be unfortunate to lose a valuable piece of property and then find that somebody had found it and then sold it on to somebody else, I would go to law and have my property returned to me (assuming I could prove ownership).

In law a dog is property. Therefore I am at a loss to accept the advice from Trevor Cooper that there is noting that can be done.

The problem as I see it with this situation is that these questions are being asked but only amongst the correspondents on these pages. What is needed is somebody (or some organisation) who is able to pull this all together and take the lead. These questions need to be put formally to the Contractor and HBC (if not already done), the media local and National – I understand that the BBC have already run with this once, and of course the politians. Do the local Councilors know what is being done in their name as does indeed the local MP.

The body ultimately responsible for this debacle is Hastings Borough Council and the individual Officer who was responsible for implementing the structure of the contract and the person who oversees the contract on a day-to-day basis, if it is not the same person. I am assuming of course that the contract is supervised!

I am amazed by the arrogance of both Hastings Borough Council and the contractor in this. Once again, in my ‘Fools World’ I assumed that the Council and it’s employees are there for the benefit of the Comminuty it serves and not to run roughshod over them. There lives the world of the old Eastern Block or indeed Nazi Germany.

This must be fought and the people responsible bought to justice. It is wrong and must not be allowed to continue. It is clear that this company has been getting away with shoddy (and possibly illegal) actions for years. Couple this with incompetance of Councils – and the people lose – again.

Do not allow this to just fade away as has clearly been allowed to happen in the past. This is how these organisations work, prevaricate as long as possible until the complainants just give up and go away. Do not allow this to happen again.

Perhaps a well respected organisation such as the Dog Warden Assocaition can take the lead or indeed somebody from these pages can pick up the cudgel.

DO NOT ALLOW THEM TO WIN.

The final point I need to make is to support the comments made by C Jackson – WE MUST DEAL IN FACT NOT RUMOUR.

Hello I am the Chairman of the National Dog Warden Association and I would like to reply to Breakspeare.

The NDWA in conjunction with the Pet Owners Parliament launched Servicewatch to investigate just the sort of issue that has happened in Hastings.

A member of the public needs to contact Servicewatch to make their complaint, the name of the complainant remains confidential but senior NDWA officers will investigate the complaint based on information supplied by the complainant.

On the other hand Servicewatch also deals with reports of good service from councils, so it is not just dealing with negative issues, if a person is happy with an aspect of dog control in their area, they can let Servicewatch know this too.

In 2009 a report will be compiled that will look at the effect of local authorities dealing with dog control on their own in accordance with section 68 of the Clean Neighbourhoods & Environment Act 2005.

To reiterate, to enable NDWA through Servicewatch to investigate the circumstances of what happened when Mr McCollin’s dog was seized in accordance with section 149(4) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, a complaint needs to be made to Servicewatch to enable the investigation to commence and a record to be kept of the occurrence.

You had two weeks away from this and as you discovered, nothing has been sorted out by either Animal Wardens Limited or Hastings Council!

It is completly unacceptable that what has appeared to have happened is that the council has handed over responsibility in entirety to this contractor regarding stray dogs?

Surely there must be somebody at the council who has to supervise this lot, how do they carry out quality checks and the like, unless they let Animal Wardens Limited supply their own quality checks and customer satisfaction surveys, which would obviuously read like some kind of soviet 5 year plan, everything is fine!

I wonder if the council did any checking on Animal Wardens Limited or did they fall for the flannel just like other councils do until they realise that what they were told, is not what they are getting?

I wonder if anybody has managed to find out what NVQ Exemption training is yet?

If you do, it would be appreciated if you would post your findings here for us to read.

“Surely there must be somebody at the council who has to supervise this lot”
The officer appointed to provide the functions given by the Environmental Protection Act can devolve them to others (in house staff or contractors) but he/she always remains responsible; it is his duty to ensure that the functions are correctly carried out and putting in place appropriate procedures to ensure this. As things stand at the moment the majority of questions being asked should be answered by him.

Just had a look on the Animal Wardens Limited website, it still has all the blurb about how they train their employees with NVQ Level Two Exemption Training (just what is that!)

Also this was of interest:

‘More… As an Investor in People accredited company, all our staff regularly have their training needs analysed and requirements met. Our structure supports the wardens in the field. Our management people are also fully trained and experienced field operatives supported by a head office team.’

If they are accredited by the Investors in People organisation, what does that say about being IIP qualified!

This was funny too:

‘Your relief warden will travel to you and stay in local accommodation, ensuring that you receive a full and continuous service. He or she will have the support of regional enforcement and education officers, who also provide cover for illness or holidays.’

This is the nub of the problem, employ untrained people and then keep sending the relief warden down for a bit of a holiday, this really says it all regarding what is going wrong in hastings.

If you read their current blurb about how good they are, you get the following, surely the trading standards people can do them because is this how they are operating in Hastings, I think not:

A member of the public contacts you to complain about a dog barking. This request for service (RFS) could be automatically redirected to us or, more commonly, the information may be passed to us by email. If you control the warden, the information can go directly to them.

We can take over full call handling responsibility for you, saving you the time, people and cost involved. Our control centre is much more than just a typical call centre that takes messages… It’s a state of the art, management process manned by experienced, fully trained, caring professionals, who know what they are talking about.

Animal Incident Management System (AIMS).
Running custom software, developed by us, over the last six years, AIMS allows us to provide you with an unbeatable service. Our people all have extensive knowledge, allowing them to give advice to the caller. Seven per cent of requests for service (RFS) are for advice and they are not passed on to the warden.

Assessing the appropriate response.
Our operator assesses the situation and the request for service is prioritised. A potential threat to the public demands a more urgent response than a noise complaint. Years of experience and a wealth of knowledge allows our team to make an informed assessment of the situation.

When a warden needs to be involved, the system informs the operator who is most suitable and available. At this stage the operator considers the level of risk for the warden, ensuring they are well prepared.

Into action with the minimum of delay.
By pressing one button AIMS brings all the relevant information together as an SMS message. Press a second button and the message is sent to the warden. In most cases they know the details of the job before the caller has put down the phone. The system automatically logs details of the call and produces a job sheet for each RFS.

Compare this to some “processes” where a print out or handwritten note left on a desk to be picked up the next time someone happens to come into the office! Every RFS we receive is entered onto the system, so reports on activity levels, outcomes and outputs are generated automatically.

And it gets better…
Your service level agreement will specify response times, so each RFS is electronically tracked to ensure compliance throughout the four stages of the response:

An acknowledgment from the warden confirming they have received the instruction.
Tracking to ensure the task is responded to within the time frame.
Monitoring that the person requesting service has been contacted.
Compliance checks to ensure that the task has been completed.
Each stages has a pre-determined time scale, depending on the nature of the request. As we approach the deadline for each activity, the system will notify the operator in the control centre who will check the situation with the warden to ascertain if the appropriate action has been taken.

Keeping everyone informed.
The warden will usually visit the MOP to discuss their RFS. If the caller prefers to remain anonymous the warden will keep them informed by phone instead.

When the RFS was entered onto the AIMS system, the full details were recorded, including the time and date of the call. From that point a log of events begins. The time and date the warden undertook each of the four stages is recorded, along with any other information. This will include such details as offenders, description of dogs, activities undertaken and the final outcome. AIMS automatically downloads to our website every hour, so you can see what action has been taken.

Proactive, not just reactive.
Job sheets are analysed to arrange proactive work, for patrols, hotspots and problem areas. At the beginning of each month several job sheets will be raised for this kind of initiative or others, such as school visits (link to education?). These jobs are monitored and reported in the same way as RFS’s.

Providing the reports you need.
We constantly monitor our performance so if, for example, your service level agreement requires a 10% sampling, one in ten customers is sent a questionnaire. The responses are compiled into quarterly reports.

At the end of each month two reports are automatically generated. The first updates you on all the activity and performance for that month. The second is about individual wardens so they, you and us, know how well they are doing.

If you want to know more about the dog warden services provided by Animal Wardens, will benefit you, your authority and the community; email or phone us now and we’ll be in touch to arrange a convenient time to visit you.’

IF ONLY THE ABOVE INFORMATION FROM ANIMAL WARDENS LIMITED WAS TRUE! – IF IT WAS, KISS WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ‘UNDETECTED’ IN THEIR ANIMAL INCIDENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM!

Or should that be Animal Incident Mismanagement System?

I can think of a suitable meaning for the acronym RFS, can you!

I note that in the self congratulatory propaganda about the AIMS system mentioned above, it says ‘offenders’, who can these be, dog foulers caught out perhaps, owners of stray dogs or perhaps it is the untrained staff of Animal Wardens Limited who are seemingly the stray dog industry equivalent of the Iraqi Army during the Gulf Wars? All puffed up and looking like they can handle themselves until when the time comes for them to be tested, they fall apart and are shown to be a complete shambles.

the belw excerp says it all really – and at least they admit they do not pass requests for service on to the wardens!!!!

Running custom software, developed by us, over the last six years, AIMS allows us to provide you with an unbeatable service. Our people all have extensive knowledge, allowing them to give advice to the caller. Seven per cent of requests for service (RFS) are for advice and they are not passed on to the warden.

– with appologies to C> Jackson if this is taken out of too much context!

Mike Hepworth of hastings council – he of the enviromental fame is on holiday till june 2nd, i have written to him 3 times. 1st letter ignored , 2nd letter replied very unhappily and 3rd letter has also gone unanswered. It would seem that he is not keen on persuing this matter.

i understand that local MP and the ombudsmen have been contacted but not heard of any reply as yet.

This state of affairs is infuriating, will somebody from the Hastings Borough Council area not make a complaint about the running of the stray dog service in their area to Servicewatch?

If nobody makes a complaint, then the Pet Owner Parliament and the National Dog Warden Assoc cannot investigate on behalf of Adrian and Kiss?

The reporting of issues is confidential and the complainants name will not be divulged, it is another tool in ensuring that this sort of thing will hopefully never ever happen again to any dogs and their owners in Hastings but also elsewhere in the UK.

Come on resident(s) of Hastings, one of you complain about Animal Wardens Limited and Hastings Borough Council, otherwise they both get away with it!

i have posted earlier to say that i have written and complained to hastings borough council and i know that i am not alone. my previous post has not been published for some reason. I was told in no uncertain terms that council was not unhappy with service , and when they will not reply to further letters what is one expected to do?

the belw excerp says it all really – and at least they admit they do not pass requests for service on to the wardens!!!!

Running custom software, developed by us, over the last six years, AIMS allows us to provide you with an unbeatable service. Our people all have extensive knowledge, allowing them to give advice to the caller. Seven per cent of requests for service (RFS) are for advice and they are not passed on to the warden.

– with appologies to C> Jackson if this is taken out of too much context!

Mike Hepworth of hastings council – he of the enviromental fame is on holiday till june 2nd, i have written to him 3 times. 1st letter ignored , 2nd letter replied very unhappily and 3rd letter has also gone unanswered. It would seem that he is not keen on persuing this matter.

i understand that local MP and the ombudsmen have been contacted but not heard of any reply as yet.

Go to http://www.petparliament.com and click on the menu bar where it says campaigns, the drop down box will show Servicewatch, click on that and you will be directed to the section on how to make a complaint that will be investigated by Servicewatch (Pet Owners Parliament and National Dog Warden Association) they will investigate and interact with Hastings Borough Council.

Mr Hepworth if he is the officer delegated to deal with stray dogs at Hastings Borough Council has a few questions to answer about the stray dog service as you will no doubt agree? As he is not bothering to respond to you, contact Servicewatch and they will do the contacting on your behalf.

If he is the guy who has chosen Animal Wardens Limited to have the contract, there is no way he will admit to being ‘not happy’ with the contract.

The MP and the Ombudsman are probably gathering information on the event, so you need to give them a chance to gather the necessary information for their individual investigations.

Another thing Joe is do not believe the physcho-babble and other tripe off the Animal Wardens limited website, it is blatantly obvious that they do not invest any training into their employees, so why believe them when they make out they have a state of the art control centre. It is probably in the shed of a terraced house somewhere in Manchester knowing their track record! (Not being regionalist as I am actually from Manchester myself)

You have written to the council three times and have not had a decent or satisfactory reply, you need to go to Pet Owners Parliament now to try to get justice for Adrian McCollin and Kiss.

By contacting Servicewatch Joe, you will create a record of what happened and it will go into the report that is going to be sent to DEFRA in 2009.

The people responsible for this terrible mistake cannot be allowed to get away with this.

Still a deafening silence coming out of Hastings Borough Council and their contractor the ‘elite’ Animal Wardens Limited.

I note that Joe Public says that three letters have been sent to HBC by Joe (of which two have not been responded to?) and it is alleged that HBC is happy with the service provided by the stray dog service version of the Marx Brothers (but obviously very less funny)

Mr Hepworth from the environmental health service is on holiday until 2nd June 2008, maybe he will be responding to Joe’s letters shortly.

If you read this Mr Hepworth, please get a grip of your contractor who seems to be extracting the Michael out of your council as well as fleecing you and your residents (see fees and charges on your own council website) Why the heck do they charge £35 to bring a dog back from the far distant kennels between certain times when they allegedly work 24 hours a day for you.

It seems that councils are moving away from the ethos of public service and actually helping the residents of their areas and letting people who might be able to ‘talk the talk’, but blatantly cannot ‘walk the walk’ run rings around them. Companies such as Animal Wardens Limited see the stray dog problem as an easy money making scheme rather than a service that protects both dogs and the public from getting in harms way.

Mr Hepworth, you should look at running your stray dog service using local government officers rather than untrained workers, no matter how committed they may be, without training they are blundering around potentially putting themselves, the residents of Hastings BC area and the dogs themselves at risk and showing up HBC bigtime.

Anybody working with dogs who (see Breakspeare above)refuses to deal with a dog that is a bit ‘upset at being in a kennel’ (stop press, lots of dogs act differently when they are in strange kennels) and they let others put the dog in their own vehicle should most certainly not be working with dogs, any dogs. The incident referred to as occurring at Hastings Police Station should certainly set alarm bells ringing. There is no way on earth (or for that matter any planet) that anybody who refuses to handle a dog because ‘they don’t do dangerous dogs’ should be allowed to handle any dog as it shows a complete lack of confidence, knowledge, training, ability and committment to their job…..oh sorry I forgot, it is an Animal Wardens Limited trained warden who has received NVQ2 Exemption training that we are referring to who would not handle the dog.

This story is all around the UK now and further afield, I wonder what council colleagues in other areas of the UK make of Hastings BC’s misfortune at the hands of Animal Wardens Limited?

On the pet owner parliament site a concerned member of the public writes on the forum that they are having problems with contacting Servicewatch so that an investigation can commence.

The concerned person should contact the pet owner parliament admin people to explain what the problem is, perhaps they can sort out the problem and the investigating can start!

As Ian Merlin writes, those responsible for this fiasco cannot be allowed to get away with no justice for Adrian and Kiss.

Adrian keep strong, people following the story are 950% behind you, you need to remember that councils, MP’s and government departments move at the speed of stunned slugs until they get a rocket uop their backsides, then watch them move!

Both as a dog warden and dog owner I have been following this thread with interest, but until now I have declined to post my view as in my opinion, the majority of posts appear to consist of conjecture and defamatory comments.

The likes of which I suspect, will not help anyone.

That being said, and, unfortunate as the Kiss occurrence may be, everyone seems to be either forgetting, or ignoring a very important fact.

And that very important fact is – if this dog had worn a tag or had been microchipped, it would probably have been returned home within an hour of being found!

Jack Russel
For the record i dont think everyone is forgetting least of all Adrian , the fact that had Kiss been wearing a tag or been chipped we would probably not be having this discussion.
Adrian is fully aware of this fact and this is a lesson he has learnt the hard way. There is no point thinking about if onlys. Adrian is doing all he can in his power to get his dog back where she belongs and that is at home with him. So i can gaurentee that he has neither forgotten or ignored that very important fact !
From Loretta
Adrian’s Sister

‘the majority of posts appear to consist of conjecture and defamatory comments.’

Do you work for Animal Wardens Limited and therefore know 100% what people from around the country write is defamatory, or do you not want dog wardens to be tarred with the same brush as this company?

Everybody knows and is aware that if Kiss had been wearing a collar and tag or even had a microchip, this situation may have been prevented. Surely as a dog warden you are aware that accidents can happen and that microchips are not currently a legal form of ID.

Instead of focusing on the ‘what if’ side of things Jack, you should as a dog warden consider how a company that deals with stray dogs can remove a dogs collar that is not then mentioned, where is this collar? They also got the dogs gender wrong, why did it take over three weeks for the register of seized dogs to be produced, where do you keep your register, is it in your office where you work, or is it kept hundreds of miles away from where you work?

If you want to defend poor operating procedures like that, then that is up to you as you are perfectly entitled to have an opinion just as other people are allowed an opinion too. As you allege that these posts are conjecture and defamation, can you prove otherwise?

People know that not all dog wardens operate like this company, you only have to read the posts to see some people ask for the reinstatement of the previous dog warden team, instead of possibly feeling ‘sympathy’ for the employees of this company (unless you do actually work for it), feel ‘sorrow’ at the fact that that your role is being threatened by a company that uses untrained people, maybe your council will think, ‘they are much cheaper, lets use them instead of our council dog wardens’

Jack Russell
While I agree that conjecture will get us nowhere in this two wrongs do not make a right. It would appear from the post from Adrian’s sister that he may have learned something. So far Hastings Council and Animal Wardens appear to have learned only that the public can be blagged and ignored. I am surprised that a fellow professional show so little concern that their cccupation deteriorate to the point where dogs collars are removed and not recorded on report sheets and a dogs sex can be recorded incorrectly on the same sheet and that this should then not be spotted by operators hundreds of miles from Hastings when they advise an owner looking for a female Husky that they have not collected any such dog.
Poor service provision is not excused or explained by the failure to provide identification.

to Jack Rusell,
I totally agree with what you say, however must point out that in rare cases the “chip” does not always show up, and a bigger question – do Animal #Wardens Ltd carry good quality readers, so that if Kiss had been chipped they could have or indeed would have returned him as you suggest within the hour?

Ricky
Its great to know Adrian is still being supported through this and thankyou for your valid comment.
Jack Russel wanted to highlight “a very important fact” that he felt we were all ignoring or forgetting and you highlighted several facts that i think he was forgetting, mainly to do with the shabby, slap dash approach that Animal Wardens LTD and Hastings council have adapted to deal(or not deal) with the situation at hand.
As for conjecture and deformatory comments, actions speak louder than words which is why AWL have the rep that they do. So thankyou Ricky for highlighting the bigger picture.

As you and Adrian know, mistakes do happen, but the situation involving kiss is not a simple case of getting the gender of a dog wrong. It does happen, but what usally happens and any true stray dog handling professional will tell you is, they go ‘what a flipping idiot I have been, this dog is in fact a dog/bitch (delete accordingly).

It happens on occasion but the situation is usually resolved with the dog warden going to or getting the kennels to recheck the dogs gender.

What went wrong as you are painfully aware in Hastings is that somebody working for Animal Wardens Limited (a Hastings Council officer verified this)was handed Kiss and this person took the collar off and tried to hand it to the finder, WHY!

Then somehow, the same person failed to correctly recognise that Kiss was a female and incorrectly recorded her as a male dog.

Worse still when Adrian spoke to the ‘national call centre’, they were too thick to assess the situation that in the Hastings area of Sussex a dog owner had lost a FEMALE HUSKY and their employee in the Hastings area of Sussex had taken control of a FEMALE HUSKY.

You do need to know how to handle dogs and be knowledgable about dog law and enforcement work (and other issues some local some national that a council may want a dog warden to deal with) to work as a proper dog warden. What you do not need to be is a nuclear physicist either in Manchester or Hastings and when asked if you have got in your care a FEMALE HUSKY, to not think (according to their then current misinformation)’no we do not have a FEMALE HUSKY but we do have a MALE HUSKY’…..hang on a minute I will use my brain and check out whether the HUSKY is either a MALE or a FEMALE.

If they had bothered to DOUBLE CHECK, Adrian and Kiss would have been reunited and none of this would have happened, Hastings BC would not be the current laughing stock of the local council world and the dog warden world!

The reputation of Animal Wardens Limited remains exactly the same to those who know about their methods.

Just how many HUSKIES of whatever gender are running around Hastings at any one time?

Anybody with an ounce of sense may have thought HUSKY, HUSKY…..HUSKY, hang on a minute, check out the one seized the other day or even that day.

Loretta, like a lot of contributors on this site I to have known about the carryings on of Animal Wardens limited for a long time, the really sad thing is that as they are cheap it allegedly seems that councils know that they may be rubbish too but then think of the savings to the council tax payers (as they always say)

Jack Russell if you do not already work for Animal Wardens Limited, after your defence of them and your critcism of Adrian, you should perhaps think about applying for a job with them?

If you do not know where to apply, go to the job centre and when you find the advert, note that it says ‘no experience necessary as full training given’ or words to that effect, log on to the job centre website and put ‘animals’, it should come up with an advert.

Finally Jack how many dog owner’s have you dealt with who said to you that their dog has just ran out of the house or garden (where it does not need to wear a collar) and legged it up the road. Accidents do happen, otherwise they would not be called accidents!

Its all so frustrating!. I understand that the hastings observer has contacted Adrian today regarding doing another story. At least the council will have to comment and if they adopt Animal Wardens ltd answer it will be a no comment which will sound even worse. Good luck Adrian and lets go another round. Ryan Omeara who i think is quite high up if not the top man for K9 mag was on GMTV this morning regarding dangerous dogs. May be Adrian could get on their too with Ryan by his side. What do you think Ryan?

Hi Loretta
Would it be possible to get Adrian to post on here and let us know how he is and if he has got anywhere. We need to know so that we can keep this going. He has been very quiet, has he accepted a deal from AW LTD?

Just to let everybody know that at the RSPCA conference in London the other day, the contractor for the consortium of Hampshire local councils set up when the police stopped dealing with stray dogs in Hampshire in 2005 came in for some negative criticism from a speaker.

During a presentation on dealing with stray dogs without the police being involved, all the words familiar to us who are following this story came out, low pay, lack of knowledge, lack of local knowledge and a high turnover of staff.

Who do you think they were talking about, I do not think that I actually need to name them….do I?

There were over 200+ delegates present and there were some movers and shakers from the government, animal charities and from DEFRA.

What a fine advert for contracting out council stray dog services, especially at a national conference with the Minister for Animal Welfare present.

I can confirm that niether AWL nor Hastings Borough Council have niether taken any actio to resolve this situation correctly, nor have they taken it seriously. Prevarication is alive and flurishing in Hastings and very nearly won But they have failed to take into account one very major factor – YOU the community.

What has happened is a crime (at least in the moral sense) and the perpetrators of this crime must be bought to justice. This truly awful company and its lickspittle accomplaces in local authorities across the nation, must be stopped.

The truth about what has happened to Kiss must be made public. If it is at all possible, she must be returned to her lawful owner. Regardless of what has happened, this heinous company must be made to pay. They have plundered their way across the dog world for far too long.

With the deepest respect to Adrian (I cannot even imagine what he must be going through) there are other issues here to have to be resolved. AWL must be brought to book, as must all of the local authorities who support their vile actions by continuing to emply them.

Your weapons are the local press and the National press. Your local politians of whatever political hue, indeed the Prime Minister is on record as saying that he will respond to people who contact him. Most importantly, this magazine (excellant TV coverage by the way) and the National Dog Warden Association. Do not forget the Pet Parliament.

Keep up the pressure, keep up your comments on these pages (I suspect that HBC are too arrogant to bother to read them, otherwise they would have taken positive action long before now).

Thanks for the update, I assume that Adrian may be at a somewhat low ebb because of the diabolical way he has been treated over this.

One positive point to come out of all this, is that the inept operating manner of this company Animal Wardens Ltd is now known to the RSPCA and others who attended the London conference (see above posting).

I do hope that somebody who was there takes note of what was said about the lack of knowledge?

As the saying go’s ‘knowledge is power’, sadly however this seems to not apply to employees of Animal Wardens Ltd.

The conjectures and defamatory statements are most appropriate, as Adrian contacted this horrific organization multiple times and was told nothing whatsoever matched his description. This shows not only competence but implies the worst kind of criminality. In the short run, Adrian should absolutely be returned Kiss and restitution made for the new family. It’s not their fault.

In the long run, obviously the people of this city need to be absolutely up in arms that strays are handed over to a for profit organization like this, in which their sole motive for profit could result in such painful and wrongful circumstances. Obviously, this isn’t working. I live in the US (where we have massive cruelty to animals via factory farms, inadequate law enforcement for dog fighting and other atrocious practices), but I suggest people organize their rage and motivation to immediately disconnect this atrocious organization from their contract with the town, and set up a system which does not allow or involve any profit seeking company. I am open to hearing from people if I can be of any help.

Highest wishes to Adrian, his family, and Kiss. And the hapless woman who ended up with Kiss, although she should not behave like a selfish idiot: give up the animal and adopt another that NEEDS A HOME with a settlement from this horrific Animal Wardens LTD.

If I can help people in any way to organize and take action, just get in touch.

Tristan.
It would be great if you could point us all in the right direction so that the councils etc will get involved and listen to us public. What do you suggest?.At the moment all we are getting is ignored, including the local MP, Hastings council and Animal wardens Ltd. They are making a very arrogant statement daily by their pig ignorant atitude of ignorance

Hi everyone
Thankyou for your continued support. I will be speaking to Adrian over the next few days and I am sure he will post soon to keep you all updated. I will let him know that you are all concerned and still fighting his corner. If i hear anything in the mean while I will let you know.
Thank you again
Loretta

Hi Everyone, I’m really sorry for not posting anything for a while, I have had so much going on and to be honest i lost heart in my battlefor a while as i was not hearing any good news from the people i needed to hear it from. i have had a few Emails from Mike Hepworth of HBC and he has basically said there is nothing they can or are willing to do. I was told by another council worker that Mike Hepworth has been to see the new keeper to try and get Kiss back. I will be starting court proceedings tomorrow against the new keepers first. From my own research, i really can not see a judge ruling in this lady’s favour after everything that has happened. This lady has proved herself to be heartless and cold, so how can she win. AWL will have to answer after rather then before, as we don’t know the outcome of what happens to kiss. IF! i lose kiss then they have got alot more to answer to. AWL have been hidding through the wholelthing and noon ethat works for them on any level has bothered to call to explain anything! they are ignoring Emails adn ive already spent over £150 on phone calls to AWL and solicitors alone.

HBC adn AWL have been terrible through this whole thing. I truly feel evryone involved should not be doing the job they are. What exactly has and can HBC do, and the same goes for AWL. i have been offered £1000 in compensation from AWL, and refused as i feel they are laughthing at me even louder with that offer.
HBC and AWL have both been warned about court proceedings and neither seem to care. Lets see if they care when a summons for negligence drops on their door step!

i’ll update this page as soon as i get back from the courts in the morning.

There are a lot of people watching this now and as you can see on the posts, there is even a gentleman from the USA offering you support!

I salute your integrity at your refusal of the £1,000 from Animal Wardens Limited, as if that would sort everything out! They probably hoped that you would take the money and all this would go away?

At least the gent from Hastings Borough Council has been to see the person who has Kiss and tried to get the keeper to return her (even though they are saying there is nothing they can do!

If you had not contacted the council at all and they had rehomed Kiss, then they would be correct as this is how thelaw operates. As you contacted them every day to check and they failed to connect the fact that they had Kiss and removed the collar and got her gender wrong, then they have messed up big time and have to answer for that.

Do you have records of when you rang the ‘national call centre’ of the Keystone Kops, sorry Animal Wardens Limited for your case?

By having a documentary record of what you have done and whom you have called, it will present a better time line for when the judge looks at the sequence of events and if you can answer straight away rather than going round the houses, your case and tribulations will be easier to follow.

Dont ever give up with your fight Adrian, apart from one person who posted against you, all the rest are in support of you.

Remember that if you start to feel down.

Lorretta wrote that the Hastings Observer has been in touch, are they doing another story?

Keep the faith Adrian and although this is an awful situation for you, glad that your back fighting your corner.

Good luck. There are so many people rooting for you, and praying that this is resolved and you get your dog back.
If there is anything that you need help with you only have to say.
Good advice from Ricky about putting everything down in writing.
sincerely all the best.

Adrian
As I see it your case, as it stands at the moment, centres on the fact that Hastings Borough Council, through the services of their contractor (Animal Wardens) failed to complete the requirements of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and that this negligence invalidates their right to re-home your dog as would be given in that Act were all its functions properly discharged.
This is dependent on the accuracy of your evidence with regard to the fact that the record which is required by the Act and stipulated by the regulations was not satisfactory in that Kiss was recorded therein as a male and is actually a female and as not wearing a collar when she was (and hearsay evidence suggests that this was removed by the warden and offered to the person who found the dog).
This negligence in the compilation of the record then appears to have prevented those to whom you reported your dog missing from associating your report and the dog they had found and therefore directly resulted in preventing you from claiming Kiss as you were entitled to do within the statutory period.
Please ensure that these facts in particular are brought before the court and make the court aware that these facts are not only pertinent to your case but are vitally important for UK law as, should it be decided that such conduct with regard to the public record of stray dogs is appropriate, mayhem is declared in their seizure and detention.
Since s68 removed police responsibility local authority officers responsible for ensuring that the functions of the Act are discharged are delegating their functions in entirety to, among others, Animal Wardens Limited, there is growing evidence that this includes the compilation of the appropriate record and it is becoming evident that the manner in which this record is being kept is less than satisfactory in a number of areas – as illustrated in your case.

For what it is worth, I have the greatest respect and admiration for you. You have obviously suffered greatly through this and in your own admission, gave up. It is an illustration of your personal integraty that you are where you are now.

I think the new family should have some compassion and
give back the dog. They are willing to reimburse her and
she should take it and do the humane thing.
Unless the dog was abused, which it does not sound like
that was the case, the dog should go home to his family
that he has known way longer than his new family.
Lady… please have a heart and return the dog to the
original family.
Teach your children the right thing to do.
You return what does not belong to you and what was
not meant to be yours.
Teach your children the humane thing to do and
return this dog to his original family.
Please.

My one comment is to The people who have kiss right now please have a heart and give kiss back to her RIGHTFUL OWNER!!!! what if you lost your dog and found out later it was sold without your permission????? you’d be heart broken! do the RIGHT thing and give the dog back asap!

What has happened here is total malpractice on the part of the company Animal Wardens Limited. Apart from the obvious sorrow of this whole sorry episode, it is also sorrowing that Hastings council seems to be so arrogant that it feels it can ignore hundreds of comments about the useless contractor it uses!

Not sure if it will help, but 2 years ago a situation occured that i know of regarding a missing/stolen staffy which although is not entirely the same it ended with original owner taking new owners to court.

The courts ruled in their favour and dog was returned.
It may help you to read it.

You only need to go to DOG LOST website and in the name search field type in ROXS (name of dog) and it is DOG ID 2437. Read the story from start to finish (lots of pages but great outcome)

Today we hear of yet another potential dog theft by Animal wardens ltd !. A lady lost her dog after her son left the gate open. A neighbour took the dog in not knowing where he/she came from, phoned AW and had the dog collected. The owner was informed of this and phoned AW only to be told that they hadnt got her dog.The lady phoned a local kennels in the Hastings area who fortunately had the local wardens number. They were quickly put in touch with each other and told that infact they had taken the dog to kennels in sevenoaks. Unfortunately the AW LTD phone service shuts now at 5pm! not the 24hr service they were running !.How come the head office had no knowledge of the dog when they instructed the local warden to collect it?. Same number, same office!. If the owner hadnt phoned the kennels she would never have got her dog back. How many people just take AW LTD word for it that they havent got their dog. Thank god she had the idea to phone around.

I also meant to mention that had the service been running after 5pm the owner could have got her dog back last night with only one days charge instead of having to wait until this afternoon to get him/her back with a charge of £75 for the priviledge

What is completely unbelievable is how this company manages to con councils, why do they not work after 5pm, is it to make even more profit from ‘pretending’ to offer a full service but only actually providing a partial and extremely poor one at that?

Thought the reason they hired this Fred Karno outfit was because they had to deal with dogs out of normal working hours!

When will Hastings Council realise that they have been conned and do something about it?

I can not believe that these guys made one more mistake (huge) a serious one. This was not a “six mistakes” this was deliberate actions they took to take Adrian’s dog. I have reasearched the dog wardens and kenelles and other organisastions for the past 5 years and they are the thiefs especially doglost that are connected to Animal wardens LTD and other kennels such as Viking Kennels. I do not worry about I have said about them.I Have lots of evidence. They know this. Adrian you will get your dog back They have not put her to sleep I am sure. Huge pressure on these people will get her back. Please call.01276485710 Krysia

Am I missing something in these threads? I thought a 24hour service was to be had? Do they work weekends? They seem to be providing less and less of a service each week Does any one know how much they actually bill the council for their services each month? perhaps the council told them to cut back on these services to save themselves some money – could that be possible?
Sounds lucky for the lady in R. Taylor’s thread that there is a good local kennel who is on the ball.

Hastings council employs Animal Wardens Ltd to provide an out of hours service because the police no longer deal with dogs after April 2008.

How come then as Joe Public writes they are providing less and less service, is this how this man Paul Dunne makes his money on these contracts?

If they have a 24 hour service, why can a dog owner not get their dog back after 5pm, even though they operate the rip off additional charge for bringing your own dog back to you from a kennels many miles out of the area that the company chose to use instead of nearer kennels?

Big thumbs down to Hastings council bosses and councillors, wonder if they have ever heard of best value for their residents?

HBC no longer uses the buzz words of *best value*.
Apparently Animal Wardens Ltd.’s office is shut at 5 pm , perhaps they are secretly working 24 hr days just not answering their phones or dealing with Hastings dogs!!
Our council rates continue to rise yet we get fobbed off with a really sub standard service, which makes me feel that Hastings residents (myself included) are thick for accepting it.

I feel really sorry for the residents of Hastings, it’s not the untrained employees who are the problem, it’s their leader.

Apparently on the Pet Owner Parliament forum somebody claims that Mr Paul Dunne does not even like dogs, why is he doing this work then? If he is doing it for the easy bucks, then he really is in the wrong job.

If anything, the Hastings scandal has focused attention on to other Animal Wardens Ltd operations in other areas of the country.

Joe, you rate Animal Wardens Ltd far too highly by saying you are being fobbed off with a sub standard service, diabolical sounds more like it!

Pet Owner Parliament forum’s post about Animal Wardens Ltd has had 1236 hits, at least the message is spreading and people are sharing their experiences about the company Animal Wardens limited. If you have not yet had a look, go to http://www.petparliament.com, if you have anything to add yourself, why not join Pet Owners Parliament and leave your comment?

If they sold that dog knowing it had an owner, this would constitue theft, the component parts
1) Appropriates
2) Dishonestly
3) Intent to permanently deprive owner of property
4)Unlawfully obtained the dog
5)Dishonestly appropriated the dog belonging to another.

Simply once the company knew the dog had an owner then all the above came into play.
A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to
another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and ‘theft’ and ‘steal’
shall be construed accordingly

KAZA
As you so rightly say all of your points are reasons for Adrian to have got his dog back. Adrian spent soooo much time/effort/money on trying all these avenues. The police werent interested and neither was the apparrent top dog lawyer Mr Trevor cooper able to help.It was said that this was a civil matter. Also it would have cost him thousands of pounds in legal fees to even attempt taking Animal Wardens ltd to court. Obviously Mr Dunne has massive legal cover probably because he forsaw one of his little scams going public. It is so obviously a sector of the uncaring dog welfare system we have that doesnt protect the dog. Just this pig we have in charge of our stray dog contract in the Hastings area and also many other councils that have been lured by this apparrent cheap price for a cheap service. Welldone Hastings and Rother district councils i am very sad that i am paying so much council tax/Vat/income tax etc to fund such crap. Talk up Hastings!(i dont think so) im embarrassed to admit i live here

You say that Animal Dog wardens are authorised to seize dogs, agreed. However are they authorised to hide them and obstruct all the efforts the owner made to recover his dog? NO! This is a simple theft have no doubt about it. These people established themselves some years ago together with web sites who claim to “reunite owners with their dogs” while they steal them in the first place. By the way Animals Dog Wardens are closely associated with doglost web site.This operation has gone very big and is slowly taking over the whole country and something must be done to stop this National Scandal. I was shocked when I first relised 5 years ago when my own dog was stolen what these people are doing. This cannot go to rest and it will not.

I have read this topic with a great interest especially when I saw my own name pop up. I do not know BorderCollieMan where you got your information from as Krysia is my real name I still have my birth certificate to prove it and I am NOT a part of DTA.

I see doglost “helpers” are still trying to discredit me. However if anybody is interested in reading the true facts of my story that involves doglost I will be happy to e-mail this. All supported by tape recordings and correspondence. My e-mail is krysiamarsh@aol.com please give me your e-mail and I will be happy to sent my story to you.

Moppetswood, animal warden from Surrey, are you in fact Peter Burnage Guildford dog warden the same one our dog was taken to and my husband came to you to collect him? The same one who send this non existent e-mail to Kirklees dog warden who apparently notified Jayne Hayes of my dog ‘s whereabouts. Only the Kirklees dog warden told me she does not notify anybody if she gets or hears of a stray dog. Not even police .She said she does not even have a computer just a lillte log book. Are you the same dog warden who told the staff at Tree Top Kennels (that’s is where my dog was kept) not to give any information about rescue dogs especially my dog? Why?? Peter Burnage told us that two gipsy like men handed our dog in and gave false addresses and yet there is no record of that at all at Tree Top Kennels. So how did Jayne Hayes who lives 280 miles from us get the message of my dog’s whereabouts.???. Just 1 hour prior to that she called us and said our dog was at Hounslow police. When I went there the young lab was not ours. So how did she know about this dog. Hounslow police DO NOT notify doglost . We have instructed a private investigator to watch the woman who took our dog and they were desperate to return him to us but after 3 weeks they did not know which lab was ours. This is very worrying that within 1 hour these people were able to produce two young pedigree dogs.

I must add a little message to “adogslife”. the only person who ever accused me of harassment ( apart from Jayne Hayes of course, but she never reported me to the police) was Susan Carter the woman who claimed my dog followed her home, all the way from Sunbury to Feltham. So if this is you “adogslife”. you may recall that the accusation were proven to be false and the police woman who issued me with a harassment notice almost lost her job because of it.

Jayne Hayes if you are reading this can I ask why after all this time you have not taken any action against me as you “promised”. If I were you and had nothing to hide I WOULD.

How do I connect Animal Wardens Ltd to doglost? Just look at their web site the only link Doglost. This is not the only reason but I will stop at that.

If pursuing a cause I believe in makes me a “loose cannon” so be it but get your facts right before you call me this. Yes I got my dog back and am happy. Adrian DID NOT. I should give up but I never will as I do not want any other dog owner to go through what I did go through.. What happened to Adrian’s dog just proves that a huge pet scam has overtaken this country and must be stopped. We must get together and get these “wardens” to return his dog and scrap this company and other web sites “ who claim they help us to reunite our dogs” from existence.

Paul Dunn I am still awaiting for you to return my call.

I am sure he is reading this.
THIS POST WAS GOING TO BE ON A PET OWNERS PARLIAMENT FORUM ABOUT DOG WARDENS LTD BUT SOMEHOW THEY HAVE NOT ALLOWED IT. WHY ????

Haasting council and Mr Dunn have alot to answer for. AWL ARE A SHAM COMPANY AND THE SOONER THE COUNCIL REALISE THIS THE BETTER. i CANT UNDERSTAND HOW THAT COMPANY IS STILL RUNNING.WHAT MAKES ME SICK IS THE FACT THAT THEY ARE GETTING AWAY WITH IT.

So let me get this right K Marsh, doglost go around the country stealing dogs, hope that they get reported to doglost for which incidentally there is no charge, enlist volunteers all over the country to search for these dogs, keep people informed regarding the progress of the search and then some dogs are found either alive or sometimes dead, and some are never found.

Right got it and the purpose is…………

and Animal Wardens Ltd is closely associated with doglost in that they have a link to the doglost website on their website. I would say that that is one of the few things that Animal Wardens Ltd are doing right. Credit where its due.

Animal Wardens Ltd didn’t steal the dog , they rehomed it due to their complete incompetence.

As I stated on the Pet Parliament website Moppetswood is not Peter Burnage and I have no association with him or Guildford Council at all, I just happen to be in the same County and once again K Marsh puts 2 = 2 together and makes 42.

I have spoken to Adrian on 1 or 2 of August. He has told me that he did not accept any money offered by Animal wardens He just wants his dog back. I said I would be happy to write letters to authorities involved and he was quite happy about it. I am starting with Michael Foster MP ( copies to Hasting and Rother Council) If he ignores my e-mail as he did Adirin’s I see no reason why my e-mail should not land on No 10 Downing Street doors. Time will tell.

I am a dog owner myself and I can’t believe that the woman who bought the dog cannot understand how Adrian must be feeling, if I was her I would certainly have given the dog back to its owner who obviously has had a longer relationship/bond with the dog. Do the right thing and stop all this stupidity..

Perhaps you are correct and Adrian has had to sign some kind of confidentiality agreement that prevents him from letting us know what has happened. If that is what he has done then that is his decision.

The poor operating practices and lack of professionalism of both the company Animal Wardens limited and the decision of Hastings Council to use them has been highlighted here amongst the wider dog owning community.

If Animal Wardens Limited had operated correctly and with any level of knowledge of how to do the job in the first place, then this situation would never have occured.

Has there been any update on this situation? My 2 dogs are microchipped and wear collars with tags but I shall still be phoning my local council today to find out what their policy re stray dogs is. Its farcical that apparantly no-one has been forced to take responsibility for and rectify this horrible but seemingly clear cut situation.

Their are rumours that Aw ltd went to court this week in Hastings about this situation. Does anybody have any info. I think that i will be hot footing to the courts tommorrow and see if i can get any details

Please find something that is in the public domain and can therefore be printed or published regarding this awful situation. this cowboy outfit needs exposing, it is a total disgrace, good luck with your search!

The dog is a lost child and needs to be given back to the original owner…whatever it takes……if it were my dog, she would not have a choice….I am sooo damn tired of people and the issues of animals, they are our choildren not just property like a lost damn shoe…..she is lucky she is not fighting me for my dog, I do not care if she purchased the dog for 5 thousand dollars,,,,,the dog needs to go home!!!!

A dog is NOT a lost child, and has nowhere near the importance of a child – however controversial this sounds. Its a terribly sad story for the owner, and shouldn’t have happened, but let it be a lesson learned – if you can’t control your dog, keep it on a lead, get it microchipped, and get a collar and tag on.
Dogs are not children, they are dogs.

Cant seem to find out anything from the courts. I am hoping that the case is on going and that could explain why it hasnt been lodged, apparently only the results are printed. Anyway will update if i have anymore info

It is not always about being or not being able to control your dog. My dog was securely tagged and still taken as he followed bitch on heat so the lady whos bitch it was decided to take him and take his tag off.

Even if he was microchipped it would not have made any difference. And yes children are children and dogs are dogs but to someone who never had/could have children dogs are children.

It is not always about being or not being able to control your dog. My dog was securely tagged and still taken as he followed bitch on heat so the lady whos bitch it was decided to take him and take his tag off.

Rosie the lady mentioned was wrong to take the tag off.

However, you say it’s not always about being able to control your dog and then go on to describe an incident where your dog was not under control “he followed bitch on heat”

Unless the dog is physically taken off you, (Robbery), or is taken from your property, (Theft), or you suffer an accident and physically can’t hold onto your dog while off your property, then yes, it IS about being in control of your dog at all times.

If your dog had been under proper control then she wouldn’t have been able to take your dog or remove the tag.

Hi Rosie
not wishing to be contoversial but I thought dogs had to be on leads in public places, even more important when there are children in the area.
Animal instinct has nothing to do with laws of the land, and a dog must be kept in control at all times whilst in public places surely?

There are plenty of training leads and extendable leads on the market, I agree with Dave, the word here is CONTROL. If you think your dog may do a runner, then keep it on a lead. And when you bath your dog, put the collar back on, have it microchipped, have the microchip details up to date, have a tag on the collar. All of these things would avoid dogs being permanently lost.
By the way, I’m relaibly informed that the case has been settled with a payout to the original owners. Case closed.

Just when you thought that things could not get any worse in relation to the company Animal Wardens Limited, please click on this hyperlink to read what they have been up to, the words irresponsible and idiot’s springs to mind:

What I find very strange about K9 magazine forums and a lot of their postees is they seem to think it is Ok for a woman to bring a bitch on heat (also walked without a lead) to a park notorious for dog walkers, take the dog who followed her bith home and remove his tag.This appears to be OK . It is me who can not handle my dog who did wrong.

Rosie, no-one here has condoned the lady in question removing your dog’s tag. However, the difference between the lady and yourself is, the lady had control of her dog (in season or not) – she took her dog home with her. You did not have control of your dog, and that is why you lost your dog – forget animal urges, instinct, the smell of nature or whatever else you think of, the basic fact is you did not have control of your dog.
So, if the fact is that your dog does not respond to your command when he finds a more interesting smell in the air, then he is uncontrolled, and its YOUR fault that he went missing. I suggest that you keep any future dog on a lead. (And by the way, a bitch in heat has every right to be walked in a public place when her owner is in control of her. An uncontrolled dog is unacceptable and it is the owners fault)

I am usually able to discuss things with people, even someone who has radically different views to my own. But I am obviously not going to get anywhere here so I’m calling it a day and signing off from this particular discussion.

Rosie, no-one here has condoned the lady in question removing your dog’s tag. However, the difference between the lady and yourself is, the lady had control of her dog (in season or not) – she took her dog home with her. You did not have control of your dog, and that is why you lost your dog – forget animal urges, instinct, the smell of nature or whatever else you think of, the basic fact is you did not have control of your dog.
So, if the fact is that your dog does not respond to your command when he finds a more interesting smell in the air, then he is uncontrolled, and its YOUR fault that he went missing. I suggest that you keep any future dog on a lead. (And by the way, a bitch in heat has every right to be walked in a public place when her owner is in control of her. An uncontrolled dog is unacceptable and it is the owners fault)

1) This isn’t a forum
2) Nobody has even been banned. Ever.
3) The only reason some of your comments would not be allowed through is because they were libellous.
4) You are paranoid and unhinged and for your own sanity, I would get some therapy.

The fact that barmy (but not libellous) comments can be posted here shows that this is not a forum.

What is difficult to fathom, is just what part R-K-K-L does not get when she is asked to not post libellous allegations here or on other forums, she or he then transfers the madness to the person asking or answering one of the comments?

Any chance we can get back to worrying about the rubbish company AW Ltd and the case of Kiss the Husky please instead of being sidetracked by this person?

Rosie/Christina/Krysia/Krystyna/Lola, There is a new law that says you should keep an uncontrolled dog on a lead , its called the ‘Common Sense’ law. Basically, in laymans terms, it means if you think your dog may run off, keep it on a lead.

I suggest to all fellow postees (with the exception of Rosie/Christina/Krysia/Krystyna/Lola/whatever new names she comes up with) that we no longer respond to the unhinged rants as it just detracts from the main forum’s topic. Also if any of you contribute to the Pet Parliament forums, you will notice similar paranoid rants on there – again – suggest we ignore. unless some semlence of sense returns.
(Bravo Ryan by the way)

I would like to know what proof you have that this woman removed your dogs tag. As a Dog Warden this is something I have been accused of doing numerous times in the past. The fact is tags fall off and often the owner does not notice until it is too late. The split rings supplied with many tags are thin wire which bend in no time at all. I always recommend taking the split ring off a keyring which is far more substantial to avoid this. The Barrel type identity tags are worse than useless as they always unscrew and lose their precious contents.

If your dog was stolen as you claim perhaps we could clear up how you got him back?

I agree unfortuantely that your dog was not under proper control and would question whether the woman ‘stole’ him or whether he just followed her home, probably making a complete nuisance of himself in the process.

It is perfectly possible to teach a male dog to obey commands. I have one male dog who has been used at stud who has lived with up to 4 entire bitches. He even walks with them when they are in season. If he is told to do something he does it. That is because he is trained.

Posted by Looney locator 31st October, 2008 at 6:43 am
Rosie – I know a law that would stop your harrassment and loony antics. They will record your calls you know…hehehehehehehehe hahahahahahah – wooooo woooooo woooooo LOOOOONNNNEEEEYYY

If you let me have your e-mail I can e-mail you my story. May be you can help me to clear up how I got my dog back. As you can see after all these years I am still confused in a big way as to this matter,therefore called paranoid, lonney,mad, crazy etc……

You’ve got your dog back – seemingly years ago, quote ‘after all these years I am still confused’. So you’ve got your dog back, years ago, what the heck does it matter how you got him back, you got him back. And no one in thier right mind would share their email address with you! I’m signing off from discussing anything with you (as per one of the previous posts, it aint worth it)

The difference on this occasion was that there truly was public outrage about the whole situation of very poor working practices on behalf of Hastings Borough Council and Rother District Council.

At one time Hastings Borough Council was known to have an excellent dog warden team that included Rodney Bridger who was very well known around the UK. Councils thinking they can save money employ companies such as Mr Paul Dunne’s infamous Animal Wardens Limited and end up losing out on knowledge of the role, knowledge of the area, competence in dog handling, motivated staff, the list is endless.

The Kiss episode must surely be used and remembered as the benchmark of the operational ineptitude of Animal Wardens Limited.

Since you are so keen for me to give you a proof, but not willing to give me your e-mail. Shall I forward this to your work place (Epsom & Ewell council)as you are a dog warden there? I don’t know why we did not think of this before. That way you have no worry about me “harassing” you through your personal e-mail and everything I have to say will be on Council’s records.

Over the past few months I have read your comments with increasing dismay. you come across as very vindictive and completely unhinged, altogether a very unpleasant woman. Why are you doing this? you highjack the threads with your vitriol and barely disguised threats. I personally now wish that you would either stop yourself from contributing or that you would be barred from participating. In my very own opinion you are a complete pain and I sincerely wish you would dissapear.

This woman is not vindictivie. She was the innocent
victim of this ring of dog snatchers who are purely in it for the money with no regard for the emotion attached to a family member which is what any animal represents. She is purely trying to prevent the same anquish happening to another innocent family and anyone who cannot see past this is the looney one.

Oh no – we have either another name for Rosie/Christina/Lola/Krysia/Ktystyna/Looney or another looney in our midst.

I tell you what,lets all just admit to being in a big conspiracy to steal dogs and swap them around with theDog Lost website. Then this looney will stop harrassing everyone and filling the forum up with crap.

WE ADMIT IT -WE STOLE ALL THE DOGS WHO HAVE EVER GONE MISSING – IT WAS US. WE ALSO CONSPIRED WITH THE DOG WARDENS FROM EPSOM. NOT!

This thread seems to have come to a close anyway as it looks that Adrian took money form AW ltd and keeps quiet. So what else can anyone do for him?

What is so wrong with being a dog warden for Epsom & Ewell? As far as I am concerned there is nothing wrong at all. Gnasher, Why are you so angry about it. She said she was a dog warden in Surreyt and Epsom & Ewell is as good council to be a dog warden ( if not better) as any other.

Hhmm,me thinks the many named Rosie protests too much,perhaps Rosie many names is the real dog warden from Epson/Surrey/Ewell, and is trying to throw everyone off her tracks, because of course, the elusive Epsom/Surrey/Ewell warden has been in hiding for years, snatching dogs and trading them on the doglost website…or perhaps Rosie many names is just unhinged. You decide.

You appear to be very simple. That is the nicest way I can describe you. A lot of you ( or may be it is just you)are turning this into a joke. If people who make these strange posts were normal they would not react like this to very normal comments. It just tells me and my friends who we are dealing with.

Posted by HHmmm?? 13th November, 2008 at 11:10 am
Hhmm,me thinks the many named Rosie protests too much,perhaps Rosie many names is the real dog warden from Epson/Surrey/Ewell, and is trying to throw everyone off her tracks, because of course, the elusive Epsom/Surrey/Ewell warden has been in hiding for years, snatching dogs and trading them on the doglost website…

I want to say to you all that I am very sorry for causing all this unpleasantness and for coming across as a complete nutter. I wont be troubling you again and I wish everyone well in exposing Animal Wardens Ltd. for any malpractise they have done.

Posted by ROSIE 15th November, 2008 at 1:03 pm
I want to say to you all that I am very sorry for causing all this unpleasantness and for coming across as a complete nutter. I wont be troubling you again and I wish everyone well in exposing Animal Wardens Ltd. for any malpractise they have done.

Anybody know whether or not Hastings Borough Council has sorted its act out regarding their dog control functions and perhaps 'gripped' Animal Wardens Limited into providing a satisfactory level of service that operates competently and correctly?

Bad news for dogs in Manchester, this muppet and his company are apparently seizing dogs as Section One dogs on behalf of the Greater Manchester Police, problem being however, Mr Paul Dunne and his Animal Wardens Ltd clowns are not authorised to seize dogs for the police, so this is an illegal action.

The rumour is that none of the dogs seized were seen by the authorised police Dog Legislation Officer, this company is a true danger to dogs.

Any dog owners in Manchester who have had their dog seized as a Section One dog by this company on behalf of the police need to speak to a lawyer.